AN-32 Aircraft’s History With Tragedy

This is not the first occasion that an AN-32 has has made news.

An AN-32 transport aircraft went missing on Monday afternoon.

(Photo: IAF)

An AN-32 transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force lost contact with the ground agencies on Monday afternoon, 3 June. The aircraft, with 13 people, lost contact around 35 minutes after it took off from Jorhat in Assam. It was headed to Arunachal Pradesh’s Mechuka.

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However, this is not the first occasion that an AN-32 has made news. Here is a look back at such incidents:

25 March 1986

On 25 March 1986, an Antonov AN-32 twin engine turboprop transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force disappeared while flying over the Arabian Sea. The aircraft was on a three-aircraft ferry flight from the Soviet Union en route to India from Muscat-Seeb Airport, Oman, to Jamnagar, Gujarat, in India.

There were a total of seven people aboard — three crew members and four passengers. The last contact with the aircraft was 1 hour and 18 minutes after take off.

15 July 1990

Four years and a few months later, another AN-32 transport plane crashed in the Ponmudi Mountain range while en route from Tambaram Air Force Station in Chennai to Thiruvananthapuram.

The plane which took off from the Tambaram air base around 9 am, lost touch about an hour later. Six people, including five IAF personnel, were killed in the incident.

10 June 2009

Ten years ago, much like Monday’s incident, an AN-32 transport aircraft hit the headlines. This aircraft, too, was carrying 13 people, and this incident took place in the month of June as well. Unfortunately, the aircraft had crashed, reportedly killing all its passengers.

The plane, in this case, took off from Mechukha in Arunachal Pradesh, the destination of the aircraft in Monday’s incident.

Back then, both the Army and the Air Force mounted a search-and-rescue operation, which got hampered due to inclement weather.

22 July 2016

The last such incident took place when another AN-32, travelling from Chennai to Port Blair, went missing above the Bay of Bengal with 29 people aboard.

The plane left the Tambaram airbase near Chennai at 8.30 am. It went missing from radar at 9.12 am, 280 km east of Chennai. Eight were personnel from Visakhapatnam-based Naval Science and Technological Laboratory's Naval Armament Depot.