With more than 24 hours gone without any trace of the missing AN-32 aircraft in Arunachal Pradesh, the IAF on Tuesday intensified the search operations by deploying a long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft of the Navy besides other aircraft. The Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) too have joined the massive search operations and are patrolling the area where the ill-fated transport aircraft carrying 13 on board, including six crew members, is feared to have crashed on Monday.
Besides the induction of the P-8I long-range reconnaissance aircraft of the Navy, the IAF itself pressed into service two MI-17 helicopters, two advanced light helicopters, a C-130J plane and SU-30s. They carried out sorties in an effort to track down the plane near Mechuka advanced landing ground in Arunachal Pradesh.
In fact, the C-130J plane equipped with synthetic aperture radars flew throughout Monday night.
The radar is capable of picking up signals on the ground, but the dense forests, rugged terrain, dense clouds and rains made the task of locating the missing aircraft difficult.
The AN-32 had taken off from Jorhat in Assam at 12.25 pm on Monday for Mechuka advanced landing ground. The plane was last in touch with radars and radio contact till 1.00 pm and then went missing. The flying time between Jorhat and Mechuka is about 50 minutes and when the plane did not land at the scheduled time, the IAF launched the search operation. The distance between Jorhat and Mechuka is 206 Km as the crow flies.
Navy Spokesperson Captain D K Sharma Sharma said here on Tuesday that the P-8I aircraft took off from INS Rajali in Tamil Nadu’s Arakonam around 1 PM to join the search and rescue operation to trace the missing AN-32. He said the long range reconnaissance aircraft will carry out search operations with electro optical and infrared sensors fitted on board the plane.
Elaborating upon the strategy adopted for the ongoing search and rescue efforts, officials said at present the planes are flying sorties over Along, Tato and Payum near Mechuka in West Siang district. Elaborating on the reason behind focusing on these three areas forming a triangle, they said the areas fall in the flight path of the aircraft. Moreover, after it lost radio contact, the plane, which obviously could not have turned back, may have continued on the designated route and may have gone down there, officials said.
The entire area is divided into air lanes with the specified planes and helicopters flying sorties in their demarcated zones to and fro many times to pick up any signal from ground. Unfortunately, the emergency locator transmitter fitted on the AN-32 has so far not emitted any signal, they said.
Equipped with infrared sensors, the P-8 I will try to pick any heat signatures which are abnormal in nature indicating any burning metal parts of the AN-32 and pass on the information to the ground troops to search the area. Incidentally, an AN-32 had crashed in the same region of Mechuka in 2009 killing all 13 onboard.
Mechuka advanced landing ground is the lifeline for troops deployed on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) facing China and the AN-32s and helicopters ferry personnel and logistics including food and ammunition. The LAC is about 30-odd km as the crow flies from Mechuka thereby making it strategically important to sustain troops. There are seven more such advanced landing grounds in Arunachal Pradesh.
The IAF has more than 100 AN-32 aircraft of Russian origin and were inducted into service in 1984. Since then at least ten planes have met with mishaps. In 2009, India inked a 400 million dollar deal with Ukraine to upgrade the AN-32 fleet and 50 of them have been retrofitted so far. The missing plane on Tuesday was yet to be upgraded.