Chennai: There is still no sign of the Dornier aircraft of the Coast Guard, which went missing along the Cuddalore-Karaikal region on June 8. In a latest development, a team of four experts from the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) is searching the area to locate the plane’s cockpit voice data recorder.
The team embarked on Coast Guard ship Vigraha and will lower a black box detector instrument in the region to help locate the missing plane. Submarine INS Sindhudhvaj is also assisting in the underwater search operation to confirm the transmission from sonar locator beacon (SLB) of the missing aircraft.
The National Remote Sensing Centre (Hyderabad), which was requested to provide satellite imagery to determine the possible location of the aircraft, has indicated presence of cloud cover in the most probable area. Second imagery by the microwave satellite is scheduled.
The Dornier aircraft CG-791, which took off from Chennai at 5.30 pm on June 8 for a routine surveillance sortie, had deputy commandant Vidyasagar (pilot), Commandant M.K. Soni (co-pilot) and Deputy Commandant Subhash Suresh (navigator) on board.
