New Delhi, June 5: More than 48 hours after the Indian Air Force (IAF) AN-32 aircraft disappeared while on flight, the plane remained untraced in Arunachal Pradesh even on Wednesday. According to a report by NDTV, the search and rescue beacon (device designed to attract attention to a specific location), installed on board the missing plane is old and has not been in production for 14 years. Also, even if it would have been operational, no signal from the unit has been detected by rescuers in the last three days. The rescuers are not able to pick up signals from the emergency locator beacon fitted in the cargo compartment of the aircraft. IAF Missing AN-32 Aircraft Still Untraceable, No Wreckage Sighted So Far.
The search by the helicopters was called off after sunset but sensors with night capability and the ground searches will continue the search operations. The sweeps by synthetic aperture radars on C-130 Super Hercules has also not given any indication abut the wreckage. According to a report by NDTV, the SARBE 8 was installed in the cargo compartment of the plane and was meant to send out a distress signal.
A massive search operation has been launched for look for the missing aircraft. Indian Navy's Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance aircraft P8i and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) satellites have been pressed into service to locate the plane but to no avail. According to reports, helicopters equipped with advanced sensors over the possible crash sites has not provided any clues about the wreckage of the missing plane.
On Monday, June 3. the AN-32, with 13 onboard, stopped communicating with ground controllers at 1 PM. The aircraft had 13 persons on board, including six officers and seven others. The Russian-origin An-32 transporter took off from Assam's Jorhat at 12.27 p.m. for the Mechuka Advanced Landing Ground in Arunachal Pradesh's Shi-Yomi district bordering China.
IAF's old fleet of transport aircraft has come under lens as the upgradation of 100 odd Soviet-era AN-32s have gone about at tardy pace. Reports inform that India had signed a contract with Ukraine for upgrading these aircraft after the 2009 in the same area of Arunachal Pradesh but only around half of the fleet has undergone transformation and the new inductions have also been delayed.
The recent incident comes after the IAF lost an AN-32 in Bay of Bengal in 2016 when the flight from Chennai to Port Blair went missing with 29 onboard was never found.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 05, 2019 11:17 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).