Air Force Plane Carrying 13 Missing After Taking Off From Assam
The Indian Air Force An-32 aircraft last had contact with the ground at 1 pm, sources said.
All India | Reported by
Vishnu Som, Edited by
Divyanshu Dutta Roy | Updated: June 03, 2019 17:26 IST
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The Antonov An-32 took off from Assam's Jorhat at 12:25 pm.
New Delhi:
An Indian Air Force transport aircraft that took off from Assam's Jorhat earlier today with 13 people onboard has gone missing over over hilly terrain in the Northeast.
The
Antonov An-32 took off at 12:25 pm for a remote military landing strip in Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh.
The aircraft last had contact with ground crew at 1 pm, sources have told NDTV. The normal flight time between Jorhat and Mechuka is about 50 minutes.
The Air Force has launched a search operation and spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel P Khongsai said every effort was being made to locate the missing plane. Soldiers of the Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police are helping in the search besides helicopters.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted about the incident.
Located in a picturesque and sparsely populated valley, Mechuka has one of the many rudimentary landing strips run by the Air Force near the Line of Actual Control with China.
The terrain under the flight's route is mountainous and heavily forested. The landing and take-off approaches to Mechuka are extremely difficult. Coupled with erratic weather, the region is among the most inhospitable for air transport.
"The aircraft may have got entangled in low clouds. Flying in these areas is fraught with a measure of uncertainty," Air Commodore Prashant Dikshit (Retired) told NDTV.
The An-32 is a Soviet-designed twin engine turboprop transport aircraft used extensively by the Indian Air Force for over four decades. Since it joined the IAF fleet, the rugged planes used to ferry people and air-drop supplies have undergone several rounds of upgrades.
In 2016, an Indian Air Force An-32 disappeared while flying over the Bay of Bengal after taking off from Chennai for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
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The search and rescue operation became India's largest such operation for a missing plane on the sea in history but the aircraft was never found. All 29 people onboard were presumed dead.
An Indian Air Force transport aircraft that took off from Assam's Jorhat with 13 people onboard on Monday has gone missing over over hilly terrain in the Northeast.
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