Debris of missing IAF aircraft traced in Bay of Bengal, discovered after 7 years

New Delhi [India], January 12 : The National Institute of Ocean Technology has managed to locate the wreckage of a transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) that went missing seven years ago on July 22, 2016, with 29 people on board.
The wreckage of an An-32 aircraft has been located at a depth of around 3.4 km in the Bay of Bengal with the help of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) with deep-sea exploration capability.
"The search images were scrutinised and found to conform to an An-32 aircraft. This discovery at the probable crash site, with no other recorded history of any other missing aircraft report in the same area, points to the debris as possibly belonging to the crashed IAF An-32," the ministry said in a statement.
Large-scale search-and-rescue operations involving aircraft and ships could not locate any missing personnel or the wreckage of the plane since it went missing.
The National Institute of Ocean Technology, which functions under the aegis of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, had recently deployed an AUV with deep-sea exploration capability at the last known location of the missing An-32 aircraft.
"This search was conducted at a depth of 3,400 metres using multiple payloads, including a multi-beam SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging), synthetic aperture SONAR and high-resolution photography," the defence ministry said.
"Analysis of search images had indicated the presence of debris from crashed aircraft on the sea bed approximately 140 nautical miles (3.10 km) from the Chennai coast," it said.