Mumbai: The wreckage of an Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft which went missing over the Bay of Bengal seven-and-a-half years ago has been found, the Union Ministry of Defence said on Friday.
The An-32 twin-engine aircraft (registration K-2743), with 29 people on board, had mysteriously disappeared on July 22, 2016.
An Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), deployed by National Institute of Ocean Technology, located the missing aircraft on the sea bed about 310 km from Chennai coast.
The search was conducted at a depth of 3,400 metres using several payloads, including a multi-beam SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging), synthetic aperture SONAR and high-resolution photography, the Defence ministry said.
“The search images were scrutinised and found to be conforming 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 as possibly belonging to the crashed IAF An-32 (K-2743),” said the Defence ministry statement.
The aircraft had taken off from Tambaram Air Force Station in Chennai at 8.30 am and was due to arrive at Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar Islands around midday.
However, the authorities lost radar contact with the aircraft at around 9.12 am, when the plane was 280 km east of Chennai.
Of the 29 people on board the aircraft, there were 6 crew members, 11 IAF personnel, 2 Indian Army soldiers (one each from Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard), and 8 defence civilians working with Naval Armament Depot.
It led to one of India’s biggest search and rescue operations, with Army soldiers using a submarine, surface vessels and several aircraft to locate the missing plane.
The rescue mission was called off on September 15, 2016, with everyone on board presumed dead.
