The particles of Indian Air Force An-32 aircraft, that went missing over the Bay of Bengal on July 22, 2016 throughout an op mission, has been found after eight years, mentioned the Union Ministry of Defence on Friday. An autonomous underwater automobile (AUV) was utilized by the National Institute of Ocean Technology, which comes underneath the Ministry of Earth Sciences, to find the aircraft.
Analysis of search photos indicated the presence of particles from the crashed aircraft on the ocean mattress roughly 140 nautical miles (roughly 310 km) from the Chennai coast. The search photos had been scrutinised and found to be conforming with an An-32 aircraft, mentioned the Ministry of Defence.
According to the Defence Ministry, the search was carried out at a depth of 3,400 m utilizing a number of payloads, together with a multi-beam SONAR, artificial aperture SONAR and high-resolution pictures. The discovery on the possible crash website, with no different recorded historical past of every other missing aircraft report in the identical space, factors to the particles as probably belonging to the crashed IAF An-32, mentioned the discharge.
About the missing AN-32 aircraft
At least 29 personnel had been on board the Antonov AN-32 flight that went missing over the Bay of Bengal in 2016. The Russian-origin aircraft included six crew members whereas flying from Chennai to Port Blair. Antonov AN-32 is a twin-engined navy transport aircraft that can fly for as much as 4 hours with out refuelling.
The aircraft went missing after it took off at 8:30 am from Tambaram in Chennai and the final time it was contacted was 16 minutes later, in response to defence sources. A couple of months after the incident, a Court of Inquiry had concluded that these on board the missing aircraft of the IAF had been to be “presumed dead”.
(*8*) the letter from IAF, dated August 24, 2016, to the households of these in the aircraft, had learn.
The aircraft didn’t have an underwater locator system, which had made the search tough. “No fewer than 201 search and rescue sorties, using all suitable aircraft at our disposal were undertaken. Approximately 2,17,800 square nautical miles (Sq Nm) have been covered multiple times by these aircraft,” the letter had said.
Previous incidents
This will not be the one case of mysterious disappearance in AN-32 aircraft’s troubled historical past. An AN-32 transport aircraft with 13 folks onboard went missing on June 3, 2019, about 33 minutes after taking off from Assam’s Jorhat for Arunachal Pradesh. The aircraft was found after a week-long search at a village in Arunachal Pradesh, with no survivors.
Parts of the aircraft had been positioned 15-20 km north of the flight path of the An-32 aircraft in Arunachal Pradesh. IAF chopper groups had been concerned in this mission. In 2009, the IAF misplaced one other AN-32 aircraft which crashed close to a village in West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh, killing all 13 defence personnel in the mishap.
(with inputs from businesses)
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