Nearly seven years after the disappearance of an Indian Air Force AN-32 transport aircraft carrying 29 personnel over the Bay of Bengal en route from Chennai to Port Blair, the wreckage of the plane has been discovered on the seabed. The Indian Air Force announced this development in a statement on Friday, revealing that an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle located the debris approximately 140 nautical miles (approx. 310 km) from the Chennai coast.
The transport aircraft with registration K-2743, an AN-32, disappeared over the Bay of Bengal on 22 July 2016 while on an operational mission. It took off from Tambaram, Chennai, heading to Port Blair. The flight carried 29 personnel, and despite extensive search and rescue efforts, neither the missing personnel nor the aircraft’s wreckage could be located. After two months of an exhaustive search, the operation was officially called off, and the families were informed that all individuals on board were presumed deceased.
During a deep-sea exploration project for polymetallic nodules led by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the debris of the transport plane was unexpectedly discovered. The Indian Air Force reported that the National Institute of Ocean Technology of the Ministry of Earth Sciences had recently deployed an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with deep-sea exploration capabilities at the last known location of the missing AN-32. This search, conducted at a depth of 3,400 meters, involved multiple payloads, including a multi-beam SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging), synthetic aperture SONAR, and high-resolution photography.
According to the statement, analysis of search images had indicated the presence of debris from a crashed aircraft on the seabed approximately 140 nautical miles (approximately 310 km) from the Chennai coast.
“The search images were scrutinised and found to conform with an An-32 aircraft,” stated the IAF. It added that “this discovery at the probable crash site, with no other recorded history of any other missing aircraft reported in the same area, points to the debris as possibly belonging to the crashed IAF An-32 (K-2743).”
Now, the efforts are focused on recovering the aircraft parts to ascertain the reason behind the accident.
Team BharatShakti