Search For The Missing Indian Air Force Aircraft With 13 Onboard Continues On The Second Day

The search operations for the Indian Air Force (IAF) AN-32 aircraft that went missing on Monday with 13 persons onboard continued on Tuesday.

The AN-32 transport aircraft took off from Jorhat at 12:27 for Mechuka Advanced Landing Grounds in West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh. According to the IAF, the AN 32 last contacted ground control at 1300 hrs and since then it has been untraceable.

BCCL/ FILE

The IAF is coordinating with the Indian Army, various government and civil agencies to locate the missing aircraft. Even though the search operations continued from the air and by ground parties through the night not much progress has been made in locating the crash site or wreckage.

Earlier, there were some reports of some possible location of the crash site, however, no wreckage has been sighted so far.?

The Soviet-designed twin-engine turboprop transport aircraft has been a part of the IAF fleet since 1984 and has been used mainly for transportation purposes.??

BCCL /FILE

A similar incident had happened in 2016, when an AN-32 that took off from Chennai en route to Andaman and Nicobar Islands disappeared in the Bay of Bengal. Despite a massive search operation that went on for weeks the wreckage of the crash was never found and all 29 people on board were presumed dead.