Search for the Coast Guard’s Dornier aircraft, which went missing last Monday off Karaickal coast, is in full swing. Sagar Nidhi, the high-tech research vessel owned by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) Chennai, on Monday morning joined the search and rescue operations. It was the elite team of scientists and engineers in Sagar Nidhi which retrieved “Varunastra”, a modern torpedo of the Indian Navy that accidentally fell into the Bay of Bengal off the Visakapattinam coast in November 2014.
The team led by senior scientist Dr GA Ramadass had retrieved the torpedo from a turbulent and rough sea with the help of sub-bottom profiler and Remotely Operable Vessels. According to a release by the Coast Guard, eight ships and aircraft of the Coast Guard and Indian Navy are working round-the-clock to locate the missing aircraft. The feeble and sporadic signals emitted by the Sonar locator Beacon of the aircraft are the only source of information for the search and rescue team. Sindhudhwaj, a submarine of the Indian Navy too is engaged in the operations.
The most probable area where the aircraft could have fallen has been identified and the entire operation is focussed in this region. Though the CG and IN officials are tight-lipped, the arrival of Sagar Nidhi team has brought hopes of retrieving the aircraft soon. The Dorneir, inducted into the CG in 2014, went missing last Monday when it failed to return to the mother station after a surveillance mission along the Palk Bay between India and Sri lanka.