IAF AN-32 Aircraft Rescuers Facing Tough Times

The members of the rescue team are spending days and nights for the last seventeen days at a height of 12,000 feet

Our Correspondent

Itanagar: Even as the last rites of the 13 air warriors of the IAF AN-32 aircraft that crashed in the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh on June 3 have been performed, the 12 bravehearts who despite all odds retrieved the bodies from the crash site, are now waiting in the crash site since June 12 with hope that the weather conditions improves so that they could be airlifted.

The 12 members of the rescue team who were air dropped near the wreckage site of the ill-fated AN-32 on June 12 are still bracing through tough times braving against the hostile weather condition and feeding on ration commodities airdropped for them on that day, West Siang district Information and Public Relation Officer Gijum Tali informed on Friday. The members of the rescue team are spending days and nights for the last seventeen days at a height of 12,000 feet even after that strenuous exercise of recovering the thirteen bodies and the black box of the plane which went off missing after 33 minutes of take off from Jorhat in Assam to Mechuka in Shi-Yomi district in Arunachal Pradesh.

“The weather condition is not at all conducive till now to lift the 12 brave men, nine from the IAF and a civilian mountaineer Taka Tamut and two of his associates deputed by Shi Yomi district administration to guide foot tracks in case weather continues to mar the chopper service there,” the official said.

The foot march too is hostile and treacherous in this tough terrain in monsoon as climbing up and down in mountains is risky and the routes along dense forest also house venomous snakes, wild animals and insects, he said.

“The weather is likely to improve by Saturday or Sunday as per metrological forecast. However, things may turn worse if weather play spoilsports with limited stock of ration commodities and force the team members all to track on foot,” Tali added.

Also Read: IAF AN-32 Aircraft: Weather Hits Efforts To Retrieve Bodies In Arunachal Pradesh