Going off the radar: Why IAF's AN 32 mystery mirrors crash of Dornier last year

NEW DELHI: The disappearance of an air force transport aircraft with 29 personnel onboard which is presumed to have been lost at sea during a flight to Port Blair has striking similarities with a coast guard Dornier plane that went missing under mysterious circumstances last year.

The AN 32 transport aircraft, which had been upgraded by the air force last year, went missing on Friday morning, with a massive search operation launched between Chennai and Port Blair to locate it.



The search team consists of several aircraft, a dozen warships as well as a submarine that are trying to find any sign of the plane.



Officials have told ET that the AN 32, a workhorse of the air force that flies missions from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh and the Andamans, disappeared from radars just past nine am.

Surprisingly, the aircraft was cruising at 23,000 feet when it took a mysterious left turn and rapidly descended before disappearing from the screens.

No distress signal was recorded from the twin engine aircraft before it vanished. Air Force and Navy officials said that all possible assets have been deployed for the search mission.

The 29 personnel onboard included officers from the air force, and passengers belonging to the Navy and Coast Guard.

Follow @ETDefence Twitter handle for comprehensive coverage on other buzzing Defence stories

The air force is currently upgrading its fleet of 101 AN 32 aircraft and the lost plane was one of the ten that was overhauled at the air force’s base repair depot last year.

However, officials told ET that the plane had reported at least three major snags in the past month.

Two of these related to problems on the left or port side of the plane. One was a pressure leak from the port door while another was a hydraulic leak from the root of the port wing.

Investigators are looking into whether this could have any bearing on the sudden left turn the plane took before disappearing.

The last fatal crash of an AN 32 occurred in June 2009 when an aircraft crashed shortly after taking off from Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh.

Prior to that, in March 1999, a An 32 crashed went down on approach to New Delhi, killing 22 people. Till now, a total of 8 aircraft have been lost to accidents since induction in 1984.