More than 24 hours since an Indian Air Force’s AN-32 aircraft (K-2743) with 29 persons on board went missing from the radars, no clue could be obtained to its location. Ships, aircraft and a submarine are involved in an intensive search operation in the Bay of Bengal, some 150 nautical miles east of Chennai.
On the sidelines of a function here, Rear Admiral Alok Bhatnagar, Flag Officer of Tamil Nadu & Puducherry Area, told journalists, “We are on full force to locate the missing aircraft that went missing in yesterday morning. We have got ships, aircraft and submarine deployed there. We are searching.. We have not been locate anything as yet but the search is on.”
When asked whether there was any headway in the search, he said, “No clue as yet, but we are looking..."
Coast Guard sailor R.M. Krishnan, who was on board the aircraft had just visited his family in Chennai before taking off to Port Blair, Coast Guard Regional Commander (East) Inspector General Rajan Bargotra said. The sailor was posted in Port Blair. He was the only one from the Coast Guard to be on board the aircraft, in which 28 others were on their way to Port Blair.
Coast Guard ships – ICGS Sagar and ICGS Samudra Paheredar, and aircraft were part of the search operation, Mr. Bargotra said.
The aircraft took off from the Tambaram air base at 8.30 a.m. on Friday and its last blip was seen at 9.16 a.m. while flying at an altitude of 23,000 feet over the Bay of Bengal. Besides the 18 ships of the Navy and the Coast Guard, aircraft and a submarine are also part of the search operation.
