Missing IAF Aircraft: Posted on ATC Duty, Wife of AN-32 Pilot Ashish Tanwar Saw the Plane Going Off Radar on June 3
Wife of IAF pilot was posted at the IAF Air Traffic Control in Jorhat in Assam when her husband's AN-32 took off from Jorhat airbase in Assam.
Guwahati, June 6: Wife of the Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot who went missing with 12 others after the AN-32 aircraft disappeared, was probably the only one in the family who closely watched the plane go off the radar on June 3. Sandhya Tanwar, wife of 29-year-old Ashish Tanwar, was posted at the IAF Air Traffic Control (ATC) in Jorhat in Assam. She monitored the IAF plane at 12:25 PM when her husband's AN-32 took off from Jorhat airbase in Assam. According to a report by Indian Express, Sandhya was on duty when the flight was on the path for landing at the ground at Mechuka airbase in Arunachal Pradesh. The plane which went missing on Monday, June 3, had 13 people onboard. Search for Missing IAF AN-32 Plane Continues, Army Deploys UAVs Over Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.
Flight Lieutenant Ashish’s uncle Udaivir Singh was quoted in the report saying that Sandhya, wife of the pilot, called the family members to inform that the ATS had lost contact with the flight at 1 pm. According to Singh, she called them an hour later after the incident took place to inform the family about the incident. Ashish’s uncle said earlier they were hopeful that the aircraft may have crossed over to China and managed to make an emergency landing, but said the probability can be ruled out because no one can be contacted. Missing IAF AN-32 Plane Had SOS Signal Unit That is Old and No Longer Produced.
According to the report, the pilot completed his training in May 2015 and then moved to Jorhat. Sandhya, who hails from Mathura met Ashish in 2018. The couple got married in February 2018. The report states that as the news of the missing aircraft broke out, Ashish’s family was deeply shattered. His father has gone to Assam to meet the authorities and get the updates about the missing flight. The pilot studied in Kendriya Vidyalaya, completed B.Tech. Before joining the IAF in December 2013, he took up a job with an MNC in Gurgaon for “two or three months.
The search to locate the missing IAF AN-32 aircraft continued for the fourth day on Thursday. In the latest development in search and rescue operation, Army has deployed its UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) over Arunachal Pradesh and Assam to search for the missing plane.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 06, 2019 04:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).