India: Plane with crew and passengers mysteriously disappears
An Indian military transport plane lost contact this afternoon and failed to land on schedule.
According to India Today, the transport plane was an Antonov An-32. There were 5 passengers and 8 crew members on board. The plane went missing at around 2:30 p.m. on June 3 (Vietnam time) while flying from Jorhat base in Assam to Mechuka airport.
The plane is believed to have lost contact about 35 minutes after takeoff.
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| An An-32 of the Indian Air Force. Photo: Reuters |
"As the aircraft did not land as scheduled, necessary action was taken," an Indian Air Force official said. Specifically, the Indian Ministry of Defense deployed many forces, including Su-30MKI fighters and C-130 transport aircraft, to search for the An-32.
In a Twitter post hours after the An-32 went missing, the Indian Air Force said search operations would continue into the night.
Mechuka Airport is located in the Mechuka valley in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, near the India-China border.
Previously, in July 2016, an Indian An-32 carrying 29 people also disappeared from radar screens while flying over the Bay of Bengal. After 2 months of fruitless searching, India concluded that the plane crashed into the sea and all people on board the ill-fated plane were killed.
