The search for the AN-32 aircraft of the IAF which went missing with 29 passengers on board on July 22 in the Bay of Bengal has not yielded any results till Thursday evening. Though it is more than two weeks since the aircraft, which was on a routine flight from Chennai to Port Blair in Andaman, mysteriously disappeared after 16 minutes of its take off from Air Force Station Tambaram near Chennai, the bosses of the search and rescue team have failed to summon ships specialised in deep sea missions.
Sagar Nidhi, owned by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai, will take another three days to reach the region in the Bay of Bengal where the aircraft is believed to have crashed. “The vessel Sagar Nidhi is on its way to the Bay of Bengal and we expect it to reach the search site by August 7 evening,” said a senior scientist belonging to the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
A ship belonging to the Geological Survey of India is also expected to join the search team by August 7. With nothing new to report, the Defence Ministry too is maintaining silence over the issue.
Igor Belousov, a ship belonging to the Russian Navy which was on a State visit to Visakhapatnam has joined the search operation for the missing aircraft. But sources in the MoES said the Russian ship could not go beyond 700 meters while the aircraft is believed to be at a depth of more than 3,000 meters.
Defence experts are of the view that IAF, Indian Navy and the Coast Guard should fortify the skies and waters of our East Coast. “Since Andaman & Nicobar islands have become a strategic command centre of the country, it is important that Naval and Coast Guard ships monitor the flight path of all military aircraft flying in this stretch. There are certain lacuna which needs to be filled by the country’s Defence Forces,” said Utham Kumar Jamadhagni, head, department of Defence and Strategic Studies, University of Madras. The Professor pointed out that more than the cost of the aircraft, it was the 29 people on board the flight who were important to the country. “All of them were skilled in their own fields. A strategy to ensure the safety of personnel has to be evolved,” he said.