All 13 Air Force personnel on board AN-32 aircraft dead

All 13 people on board the AN-32 aircraft which crashed in a remote area in Arunachal Pradesh are dead, officials said on Thursday.

The news was confirmed by the Indian Air force (IAF) after the rescue team, which had to halt at a base camp near the crash site last night due to inclement weather, reached the exact site of crash and searched for any survivors but couldn’t find any.

“IAF is sad to inform that there are no survivors from the crash of An32,” the Force said in a tweet.

The families of the 13 personnel have already been informed that there are no survivors. The IAF in a tweet said it stands by with the families of the victims.

The air warriors who were on board the ill-fated AN-32 aircraft were – Wing Commander GM Charles, Squadron Leader H Vinod, Flight Lieutenant LR Thapa, Flight Lieutenant Ashish Tanwar, Flight Lieutenant S Mohanty, Flight Lieutenant MK Garg, Warrant Officer KK Mishra, Sergeant Anoop Kumar, Corporal Sherin, Leading Aircraftsman SK Singh, Leading Aircraftsman Pankaj, Non-Combatant Putali and Non-Combatant Rajesh Kumar.

A new photo released by the Indian Air Force shows, what looks like a small crater on the face of the mountain, lands credence to the speculation that the aircraft could have hit the mountain just below its summit.

Meanwhile, the black box of the ill-fated AN-32 has been recovered by the search team. A black box or a flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of investigation of aviation accidents and incidents.

After grueling search mission wherein the Defence Ministry mobilised all possible assets at its disposal to trace the missing AN-32, the Air Force on June 10 managed to locate the wreckage of the aircraft.

The Russian-origin AN-32 went missing after taking off from Jorhat Airbase in Assam on the 3rd of June, while en-route Mechuka Advanced Landing Ground in Arunachal Pradesh near the border with China. The aircraft had lost contact with the Air Traffic Control at 1 pm, within 33 minutes of taking off.

A pall of gloom descends on the homes of the air warriors who lost their lives in the air crash, after the confirmation of no survivors in the air crash by the Air Force.