New Delhi: An Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Antonov 32 (AN-32) transport aircraft that took off from Chennai’s Tambaram Indian Air Force base to Port Blair in the Andamans across the Bay of Bengal on Friday morning and was reported missing with 29 people on board, was certainly not in the best of its health. This month itself, there were several complaints that the ageing aircraft had logged in after inspections.
According to a source, on July 2, throttle movement was found to be slow “which restricted a normal revving up of the engine”, on July 7, there was a hydraulic leakage form the port wing root and on July 14, pressure was found to be leaking from the port door of the craft.
Disaster in the air
“All these are recorded facts,” the source said. The twin-engine plane captained by Flight Lieutenant Badsara and co-piloted by Flying Officer Nandal had taken off on a regular courier sortie with 29 people on board at about 8:30 am.
“After about 15 minutes, we lost radio contact and about 20 minutes after that the last blip on the radar was recorded by the Air Controller,” the source added.
Reportedly, the aircraft, at about 150 nautical miles away from Tambaram, took a sharp left turn and then suddenly descended from a height of about 23,000 feet.
The IAF plane was expected to reach Port Blair by 11.30 am and had the fuel to be airborne for about four-and-a-half hours.
The 29 missing includes six crew and 23 passengers comprising 11 IAF personnel, nine from the Indian Navy including eight civilians, two from the Indian Army, one from the Coast Guard.
In the last ten years, four AN-32s have crashed with 101 aircraft existing in the IAF inventory at present. AN-32s are Russian-made medium tactical transport aircraft used mainly by IAF for troop and cargo transportation, para-dropping and casualty evacuation. Each aircraft is fitted with two aero-engines. Inducted in a seven-year period from 1984-1991, the Total Technical Life of the aircraft is 20,000 flying hours, 25 years and 15,000 landings.
From 2010 onwards, the IAF took up a programme to extend the TTL of the then-existing 105 aircraft from 25 to 40 years by overhauls and upgrades. While 40 aircraft were re-equipped and overhauled in Ukraine’s Kiev between 2009 and 2013, 65 aircraft were upgraded in India between 2011 and 2015.
