NEW DELHI: today, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will take a visit to Chennai to oversee search setup for an Indian Air Force AN-32 “courier flight” which went missing on Friday with 29 people on board.
The plane left the Tambaram air base near Chennai at 8.30 am on Friday and was to have landed at Port Blair around 11.45 am. It fell off the radar at 9.12 am, 280 km east of Chennai. More than 12 Navy and coast guard ships are looking for the aircraft in the Bay of Bengal. A submarine has also been diverted for the search. The search operation continued through the night.
Yesterday, Mr. Parrikar said, "All efforts are being made to trace the missing plane and the service personnel on board”. The last call from the aircraft was around 16 minutes after take-off, when the pilot reported that "everything is normal".