Missing Indian Air Force aircraft’s debris found after eight years
The IAF aircraft had gone missing over the Bay of Bengal on July 22, 2016, during a mission with 29 personnel aboard
Updated: Jan 13th, 2024
The debris of Indian Air Force (IAF)’s AN-32 aircraft that went missing in 2016 with 29 personnel abroad, was possibly found after eight years of the aircraft's last sighting.
An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) deployed by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT, ministry of earth sciences) was able to locate the debris of an IAF AN-32 aircraft (registration K-2743).
The IAF aircraft had gone missing over the Bay of Bengal on July 22, 2016, during a mission with 29 personnel aboard.
Utilising the AUV with advanced technologies, the team at NIOT identified debris from the crashed aircraft at a depth of 3,400 metres on the seabed, 310 kilometres off the Chennai coast in a recent deep-sea exploration.
The search was conducted with multi-beam SONAR (sound navigation and ranging), synthetic aperture SONAR, and high-resolution photography.
As the probable crash site had no other recorded history of any other missing aircraft reported in the same area, it points to the debris as possibly belonging to the crashed IAF An-32 (K-2743).
The unanswered crash
The Port Blair-bound AN-32, an IAF transport aircraft, had taken off from Air Force Station Tambaram (Chennai) on July 22, 2016.
The 29 people on board included six crew members and the rest from the IAF, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Coast Guard, and civilian family members of the defence personnel.
It had reported ‘operations normal’ while taking off, but surprisingly, there was no transmission from it shortly after. Just 270 km away from Chennai, it lost contact with the ground radar.
‘Operation Talash’, a massive search operation, was launched after that, with armed forces working 24/7 in the area.
Despite the efforts of agencies, no debris was recovered then. The exact reason for the accident was also not published, as the debris and flight data recorder were yet to be examined.
