 "Air Force's AN-32 plane not found yet, search operations on for over 57 hours now")
A total of 18 ships and 16 aircraft from Indian Coast guard, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force have been on the search operations and additional assets have been mobilised to bolster the search efforts, said an update from National Maritime Search and Rescue Secretariat. A thorough search operation has been mounted by ships from the mainland, while the aircraft are undertaking search covering a much larger area in the surroundings. In addition, ships and aircrafts from Andaman & Nicobar region are carrying out search in areas along the flight track from Chennai to Port Blair.
The coordination centre in Chennai has also advised merchant vessels transiting the area to keep a sharp lookout for any signs of missing aircraft, it said. The search operations have been extended to newer areas, according to sources.
The AN-32, a courier flight with service personnel on board, took off from the Tambaram Air Force Station at 0830 hours on Friday and it was suppose to reach Port Blair after three hours of flight.
Out of the 29 people who were on-board, six were crew members along with eleven IAF personnel, two from Indian Army and one person from Indian Coast Guard. Eight civilians working with the Indian Navy, along with one sailor from Indian Navy was also travelling in the aircraft.
On July 22, an An-32 aircraft belonging to 33 Squadron of IAF, which is located at Sulur, Coimbatore, was on a scheduled courier sortie from Tambaram (Chennai) to Port Blair. The aircraft departed Tambaram at 0830 hrs with 6 crew members and 23 passengers. The aircraft was scheduled to arrive at Port Blair at 1145 hrs.
The aircraft, however, did not make any contact with Air Traffic Control of Port Blair and an overdue action was initiated. The last Radar contact marked by Chennai Air Traffic Radar was East of Chennai at 151 NM. The aircraft was flying at 23000 ft.
A massive search operation is in progress, braving prevalent monsoon, weather conditions and poor visibility wherein IAF, Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard have pooled in all available resources to look for any possible sign of the aircraft in this vast swath of Bay of Bengal between Chennai and Port Blair.
An official said that the state of the sea is 3 to 4 and is very choppy with thick monsoon clouds in the area, making the search effort challenging.
As reported earlier, IAF has deployed two C-130 aircraft, equipped with Electro-optical and Infra-Red sensors. Indian Navy P8i aircraft equipped with Synthetic Aperture Radar along with Dorniers are also taking part in this operation. Indian Navy has deployed 13 ships in the search area and is being assisted by six ships of Indian Coast Guard and merchant vessels in the area. Indian Navy has also deployed one submarine for the task. The Maritime Rescue and Coordination Center at Chennai has been coordinating round the clock surveillance towards search effort along with Southern Air Command of IAF, Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard.
Five merchant vessels in the area were also advised to keep a sharp lookout.
Merchant Vessel 'Harshavardhan' which was proceeding to Chennai from Port Blair and closest to the most likely position was directed to proceed to the location at maximum speed and undertake search.
Further, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) was requested to provide computer aided probable search area. The National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad, has been requested for high-resolution satellite image for missing IAF Aircraft AN-32.
"Despite the extremely rough weather, extensive search operations are underway and continuous sea air coordinated search are being conducted in close coordination with aircraft from IAF and search units of Indian Navy, Nil debris/ survivor have been sighted. All out efforts are underway to locate missing aircraft," said the officials earlier.
