Major breakthrough in locating missing Dornier aircraft CG 791: Flight data recorder recovered

After an exhausting 33 day effort that was the largest ever maritime search mission launched by Indian agencies, the coast guard has managed to locate and pick up the flight data recorder of the missing Dornier aircraft CG 791 from the Bay of Bengal.

The recorder, which contains the only clues to the mystery of the missing plane, was recovered from a record depth of 950 meters, an unheard of recovery mission in Indian maritime history.

Coast Guard Inspector General VSR Murthy confirmed to ET that the debris had been located and said that the recorder was picked up by deep sea rescue vessel Olympic Canyon that had been loaned by Reliance from its KG Basin facility.

#ICGDornier: Here is the photo of the undercarriage of the crashed aircraft located in Bay of Bengal (MoD) pic.twitter.com/bmaADaTrnQ

— ET Defence (@ETDefence) July 10, 2015

The mystery crash of the plane had everyone confounded, as there was little to understand how the stable aircraft disappeared. The problem is that there is very little to go by to trace the aircraft. The first indication that something had gone wrong with CG 791 was when it did not land in Chennai after patrolling the Palk Strait.

#ICGDornier: Here are the details of the efforts leading to locating the missing aircraft's debris (MoD) pic.twitter.com/3ScPvmJQZc

— ET Defence (@ETDefence) July 10, 2015

The lack of a distress call – or even a squawk from its radio -- made controllers hope against hope that some communication failure had occurred. However, fears of a disaster were soon corroborated from radar inputs that showed the aircraft disappearing from the tracking screen. Data extrapolated from a Chennai radar later showed the Dornier make an unexplained rapid, spiral descent from a height of 9,000 feet to 4,500 feet before disappearing.


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In less than 12 hours, the navy and coast guard mobilised a search effort, hoping to find its highly trained crew that had practiced sea-ditching manoeuvers scores of times.

CG 791 had perhaps one of the most experienced crews on board, with both pilots designated ‘master green’ (the top designation on instrument flying) and the navigator an instructor:

The last radar signal that tracked a downward spiral by the aircraft has led to the following theories - The aircraft went into an uncontrollable spin due to complete control failure after a major malfunction on board,The Dornier stalled in flight due to a malfunction of the auto pilot or other instruments like air speed indicator, structural failure led to the aircraft going into an uncontrolled spin.

#ICGDornier: Debris located by ROV Support Vessel, Olympic Canyon, through TX detected by INS Sindhudhwaj (MoD) pic.twitter.com/h7ZkC5FRsH

— ET Defence (@ETDefence) July 10, 2015