Despite coordinated efforts by several vessels and aircraft of the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Coastal Security Group of Tamil Nadu Police since Monday night, the missing Dornier with three officers on board, CG 791, remained untraced for the third day on Thursday.
The oil sample collected by the Coast Guard off the Karaikal coast too gave no clue as the test reported negative for aviation turbine fuel.
“Water samples from the area of oil patches in sea sent for analysis has tested negative. No trace of aviation fuel found,” Defence Ministry spokesperson Sitanshu Kar tweeted.
While sustained efforts to locate the aircraft were continuing by vessels of the Coast Guard and the Navy for the last 96 hours, Dornier and the Navy’s P8I from clocked over 60 hours of aerial surveillance, according to an official release.
Though ISRO officials have been looking for possible signals from the aircraft, no significant inputs have been obtained so far.
The CSG was planning to do an aerial search with paramotors over the marshy mangrove areas in Pichavaram near Chidambaram of the Cuddalore district, which was not accessible from the sea.
The CSG continued its search operations in Velankanni and surrounding areas for several hours looking for any object floating on the sea.
“We are yet to get hold of any concrete input regarding the missing aircraft despite our intense search operations in the mid-sea,” CSG sources said.
The sensitisation meeting with local fishermen in the coastal villages continued with the CSG personnel asking them to bring to their notice any strange objects found floating on the sea.
The Superintendent of Police, Coastal Security Group, Manoharan, held a meeting with the fishermen at the coastal village of Pazhaiyar in Nagapattinam district on Thursday.
Fishermen were asked to alert the CSG in case they found some suspicious looking objects floating on the sea.
Test on water samples turns negative for
aviation fuel
