Though it is more than a week since the AN-32 aircraft of the Indian Air Force with 29 personnel on board went missing somewhere in the Bay of Bengal during a routine flight from Chennai to Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar islands, the search operation has not yielded any results. Nearly 20 ships and four aircraft belonging to the Navy and Coast Guard are engaged in the massive maritime search and rescue operations ever undertaken in the history of the Navy or Coast Guard.
The services of Sagar Nidhi, a state-of-the-art ship equipped with modern instruments for search operations and belonging to the National Institute of Ocean Technology has been summoned for "Operation Talash", as the mission has been named by the authorities.
But according to senior officials in the Ministry of Earth Sciences, it may take minimum five days for the Sagar Nidhi to reach the site of search operations as it is sailing in the turbulent waters of the Indian Ocean. While one official put the earliest date as August 2 for Sagar Nidhi to reach the region where the aircraft is believed to have fallen, another senior scientist said the ship would be reaching the spot only by August 5.
"Keeping the date of arrival of Sagar Nidhi aside, what is disturbing is the fact that the Indian Navy or the Coast Guard are ill-equipped for such a massive search and rescue operation," said the senior MoES scientist. He said the Indian forces do not have the minimum infrastructure for maritime rescue operation. "What is being shown to us during the naval exercises are mere gimmicks. The Indian Navy should have its own search and rescue vessel which could be used for other multipurpose operations," said the scientist who spoke on conditions of anonymity.
The 2015 crash involving the Dornier aircraft of the Coast Guard should have been an eye opener, he pointed. "It took us 36 days for us to locate the debris of that aircraft. At one stage the family members of the crew in that aircraft had written to the Prime Minister to seek the services of external agencies if our forces were ill equipped for such a mission," he reminded.
Scientists of the INCOIS (Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services) and NIOT said any kind of underwater operation was time consuming and required patience. "But forces like Indian Navy or IAF or Coast Guard are found wanting. The ships which are pressed into the search operation are all warships and it is a matter of concern," he pointed out.
No concrete evidence on missing IAF plane: Parrikar
New Delhi: "Several inputs and leads" regarding floating objects have been picked up but there is no concrete evidence so far with respect to missing AN-32 aircraft of the IAF, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar told the lok Sabha on Thursday.
Making a suo motu statement on the disappearnce of the plane on July 22, he said the search efforts are focussed on the surface as well as the underwater domain to look for survivors and debris.