The remains of the Indian Air Force An-32 aircraft, which had gone missing over the Bay of Bengal nearly seven-and-a-half years ago, were found near Chennai coast on the seabed at a depth of 3.4 km. An autonomous underwater vehicle of the National Institute of Ocean Technology found the wreckage, following which photographs were analysed and found to conform with an An-32 transport carrier aircraft.
The plane with registration number K-2743 had gone missing over the Bay of Bengal on July 22, 2016, during a mission. At least 29 personnel were onboard the flight, but even large-scale search and rescue operations by other aircraft and ships could not locate the plane debris or the missing personnel.
According to the defence ministry, the debris were found at least 310 km off the Chennai coast on the seabed. A scrutiny of the images captured by the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) established that the wreckage is of an An-32 aircraft, the ministry said.
“The search images were scrutinised and found to be conforming with an An-32 aircraft. This discovery at the probable crash site, with no other recorded history of any other missing aircraft report in the same area, points to the debris as possibly belonging to the crashed IAF An-32,” the ministry said in a statement.
The National Institute of Ocean Technology, which functions under the aegis of the ministry of earth sciences, had recently deployed an AUV with deep-sea exploration capability at the last known location of the missing An-32 aircraft.
“This search was conducted at a depth of 3,400 metres using multiple payloads, including a multi-beam SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging), synthetic aperture SONAR and high-resolution photography,” the defence ministry said.
It added: “Analysis of search images had indicated the presence of debris of a crashed aircraft on the sea bed approximately 140 nautical miles (3.10 km) from the Chennai coast.”
(With PTI inputs)
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