After nearly 8 years of its disappearance, the debris of the Indian Air Force An-32 aircraft (registration K-2743) has been discovered, the Ministry of Defence announced on Friday, January 12.
The said transport aircraft was reported missing over the Bay of Bengal on July 22, 2016, with 29 personnel on board. The aircraft took off on a routine weekly courier flight from Tambaram Air Force Station in Chennai in the morning and was scheduled to arrive at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
"Despite large-scale Search and Rescue operations by aircraft and ships, no missing personnel or aircraft debris could be located. The National Institute of Ocean Technology, which operates under the aegis of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, recently deployed an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) with deep-sea exploration capability at the last known location of the missing An-32," a release from the Ministry of Defence stated.
"This search was conducted at a depth of 3400 m using multiple payloads, including a multi-beam SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging), synthetic aperture SONAR, and high-resolution photography. Analysis of search images indicated the presence of debris from a crashed aircraft on the seafloor approximately 140 nautical miles (approx. 310 km) from the Chennai coast, it added.
"The search images were scrutinised and found to be consistent with an An-32 aircraft. This discovery at the probable crash site, with no other recorded history of any other missing aircraft report in the same area, points to the debris possibly belonging to the crashed IAF An-32 (K-2743)," the release informed.
The massive search operations launched back in 2016 involved the Indian Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard in locating the missing aircraft. The Air Force deployed three aircraft, including a C-130J Super Hercules, and four ships, while the Navy deployed several vessels into service. INS Karmukh, Gharial, Jyoti, Kuthar, Sahyadri, Rajput, Ranvijay, Kamorta, Kirch, etc., scanned the aircraft's flight route.
According to media reports, the air traffic controllers lost radar contact with the AN-32, which plunged from approximately 23,000 feet, approximately 280 km out at sea from Chennai. The then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was personally monitoring the situation at that time.
The massive Search and Rescue (SAR) operations launched back then are considered the biggest ever in the history of the IAF.
(Edited by : Anand Singha)
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