New Delhi: The 29 people on board the AN-32 plane that went missing over the Bay of Bengal on July 22 have been “presumed dead” and their families informed, Indian Air Force officials said on Thursday.
Officials from both IAF and Navy however said that search for debris of the ill-fated aircraft will continue.
The AN-32, which was going to Port Blair from Chennai, had on board six crew members, 15 personnel from the IAF, army, navy and Coast Guard, and eight civilians who were family members of the personnel. “The families have been informed, but the search still continues,” Indian Air Force spokesperson Wing Commander Anupam Banerjee said.
“Search for the AN-32 is still in progress with ships from National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) and Geological Survey of India, Samudra Ratnakar and Sagar Nidhi,” a Navy official said. The official the Navy, IAF, and Coast Guard are all making efforts to search for the missing plane.
The aircraft, an upgraded AN-32 belonging to 33 Squadron, took off from Tambaram Air Force Station in Chennai at 8.30 a.m., and was expected to land at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands at 11.30 a.m., in what officials said was a “routine sortie”.
Ekanath Shetty’s family informed
Ekanath Shetty, an officer from Guruvayanakere in Belthangady was also on board the Indian Air Force plane carrying 29 people that went missing. The IAF officials have communicated to the kin of personnel on the missing AN-32 plane that those on-board have been presumed dead.
Eknath Shetty (48) joined army as a Subedar in 1985 and moved to Madras regiment later. He had served in Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh and Punjab with a brief stint in Sri Lanka during 1986. Though his service in army ended in 2009, he got a call from the air force to join its defence security wing. In this unit, he had served at places like Kannur, Goa and Kanpur before getting posted at Port Blair.