An IAF transport plane, AN-32, went missing on Friday with 29 services men on board while it was on its way from Chennai to Port Blair. A search and rescue operation involving 15 ships of the Navy and Coast Guard and five planes was launched across the Bay of Bengal to locate the ill-fated plane. A submarine was also pressed into service to detect underwater flight transmitter on board the plane.
The ships were rushing toward three sites where the plane could have gone down. They would reach the these sites by midnight, official sources said, adding the rescue operations will continue thoughout the night. The twin-engine plane took off from the IAF airbase at Tambaram near Chennai at 8.30 am and had last radio contact with Tambaram air traffic control (ATC) at 8.46 am while flying at an altitude of more than 20,000 feet.
It was scheduled to land at Port Blair at 11.30 am after covering a distance of 750 nautical miles (1,300 km). When the plane failed to land, the search and rescue mission was launched at 11.45 am. Reports
indicated that radars had last seen the plane about 9.15 am 200 km east of Chennai.
The services personnel on board the missing plane included four officers and 25 others, officials said here. While the plane was manned by a crew of six, other passengers included 11 from IAF, nine Navy men, two from Army and one from Coast Guard. Port Blair is the home to tri-services command.
“The plane, which was on a routine courier service, took off at about 8.30 am from Tambaram and it was scheduled to land at Port Blair at 11.30 am but it is overdue,”
said IAF spokesperson Wing Commander Anupam Banerjee.
The courier service flights fly three times in a week. These planes have enough fuel to fly over ocean and land at an alternate base in Campbell Bay or Car Nicobar in Andamans in case they cannot land at Port Blair. Elaborating on the search and rescue mission, officials said the IAF deployed one C-130J plane along with two AN-32 aircraft besides two P-8 long range maritime aircraft of the Navy and two Dornier aircraft of the Coast Guard.
The main focus of these aircraft and 13 ships was to look for the ship ten nautical miles in sea on either side of the flight path of the ill-fated plane, they said. A submarine was also diverted to the area to hunt for the beacon of the plane in case it was under water, they added.
Moreover, Eastern Fleet Commander Rear Admiral Sunil Bokre also rushed in a ship from Port Blair to oversee the rescue operations, said Navy spokesperson Captain DK Sharma. Coast Guard officials said their reconnaissance Dornier aircraft has reached the site from where the IAF plane had sent the signals for the last time.
Often called ‘workhorse’, as these planes are rugged and carry troops besides maintaining logistical support to far flung posts of the Army all over the country, IAF has over 100 Russian made AN-32s which were inducted in the mid 1980s. The missing plane had undergone upgrade last year. Incidentally, the last AN-32 air crash took place in Arunachal Pradesh in 2009 killing 19 personnel on board.
Meanwhile, Home Minister Rajnath Singh asked the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to assist the Air Force, the Navy and the Coast Guard to locate the missing aircraft. The Minister spoke to NDRF chief OP Singh and asked him to ensure assistance in the search and rescue operation. The NDRF will provide manpower from its Chennai base, officials said.