Missing IAF AN-32 Aircraft: Search Enters Day 5, Navy’s P8i Aircraft Joins Operation Using Its Special Radars to Locate Plane

New Delhi, June 7: The search operation for the missing IAF's AN-32 plane continued for the fifth day on Friday. The latest to join the search operations is Indian Navy’s Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance aircraft P8i which took off from INS Rajali in Tamil Nadu's Arakonam to trace the missing AN-32. It will carry out search using its special radars and sensors for locating the plane. Search for Missing IAF AN-32 Plane Continues, Army Deploys UAVs Over Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.

The IAF AN-32, a Russian-origin transport aircraft, with 13 people on board, went missing Monday, June 3. The aircraft went off the radar around 33 minutes after taking off from Jorhat in Assam for Menchuka near the border with China. Reports inform that wife of the Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot who went missing with 12 others after the AN-32 aircraft disappeared, was posted at the IAF Air Traffic Control (ATC) in Jorhat in Assam on the day of the incident.

Here's the tweet:

Till now,  four Mi-17, three Advanced Light Helicopters (two of Army and one from IAF), two SU-30 MKI, one C130 and one Army UAV, satellites and all possible civil, police and local administrative agencies have further expanded search based on human and sensor inputs. Missing IAF AN-32 Plane Had SOS Signal Unit That is Old and No Longer Produced. 

On June 3, the plane took off from Jorhat at 12.27 pm for the Menchuka advance landing ground in Shi-Yomi district in Arunachal Pradesh, and its last contact with the ground control was at 1 pm. "Some ground reports were received on possible location of a crash site. Helicopters were routed to the location, however, no wreckage has been sighted so far," the IAF said in a statement on Monday.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 07, 2019 10:04 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).