Guwahati: The wreckage of AN-32 aircraft was located more than a week after its disappearance in Arunachal Pradesh. The latest update to the search operations is that the bodies of all 13 air-warriors who were onboard while the flight went missing in the air have been recovered from the crash area along with the black box and cockpit voice recorder.
As stated by the source, the bodies of the IAF officials will be ferried through choppers as the crash site is remote enough for any other medium of transportation to be used. The crash site is said to be based in a heavily forested mountainous terrain. A team of rescuers have reached the site and has confirmed that there are no survivors.
Notably, an IAF chopper had first located the wreckage of the plane on Tuesday which is based at a height of 12,000 ft near Gatte village. The crash site is located on the border of Siang and Shi-Yomi districts. It took eight days for the rescuers to locate the wreckage of the flight following a massive search operation. The search operation included aircraft, choppers and ground forces.
The IAF officials who were onboard in the ill-fated flight were Wing Commander GM Charles, Squadron Leader H Vinod, Flight Lieutenant R Thapa, Flight Lieutenant A Tanwar, Flight Lieutenant S Mohanty, Flight Lieutenant MK Garg, Warrant officer KK Mishra, Sergeant Anoop Kumar, Corporal Sherin, LAC SK Singh, LAC Pankaj, NC(E) Putali and NC(E) Rajesh Kumar.
In a recent tweet, IAF pays tribute to the officials who lost their lives in the aircraft.
https://twitter.com/IAF_MCC/status/1139073482212356097
The flight AN-32 was a Russian-origin aircraft which was flying from Jorhat in Assam to Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh. It had lost contact at around half-an-hour after taking off.
Indian Air Force has repeatedly been giving updates on the rescue mission and the recovered bodies through tweets on its official Twitter handle.