How the last contact made with ATC narrowed the search

A 5-km radius area in the Nallamalai forests in Andhra Pradesh from where the missing helicopter carrying Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy made the last contact to Air Traffic Control has been identified, Union Minister Prithviraj Chavan said here today.

IAF’s Sukhoi 30MK1 aircraft with synthetic aperture radar for high resolution ground mapping and a pilotless low-flying ISRO aircraft scoured the thick Nallamalai forests in Kurnool district to locate the missing chopper with five persons, including two pilots, on board.

“By triangulation, we have located the area which is about 5-km raidus circle and it has been identified based on the last contact with the Air Traffic Control,” Mr. Chavan, the Union Minister of State in the PMO, told reporters.

“They (people on board the chopper) were carrying about five cell phones and so whenever a cell phone passes through a tower it will register and with the best help from BSNL, we will identify the area,” Mr. Chavan, who, along with the Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily rushed here last night, said.

“We are sparing no efforts whatsoever. We have deployed everything what we have got, Airforce, state police, air-surveillance, satellite imagery and remote-sensing aircraft have been taking photos. Everything has been put into service,” Chavan said.

“It is that area where the last contact with Air Traffic Control was made and also contact with a BSNL mobile tower was made,” he said.