All 13 people on board AN-32 aircraft dead: IAF

Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service 
New Delhi, June 13

The Indian Air Force on Thursday said all 13 people, including eight officers, on board the AN-32 plane are dead. A mountaineering team reached the site--at an altitude of 12,000 feet--on Thursday morning. 

The plane went missing on June 3 and the wreckage was located on June 11. 

The wreckage of the AN-32 transport aircraft was found eight days after it went missing on June 3 in Arunachal  Pradesh. The IAF twitter handle announced the demise of all 13. It even tweeted the names of those dead.

The flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CDR) of the AN-32  has been recovered.

The FDR and the CVR are vital to establish what happened in the flight and how it crashed from an altitutde of 12000 feet. The IAF is now retrieving the 13 bodies. Each of the bodies have to be airlifted.

IAF Pays tribute to the brave Air-warriors who lost their life during the #An32 crash on 03 Jun 2019 and stands by with the families of the victims. May their soul rest in peace.

— Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) June 13, 2019

The wreckage was spotted 16 km north of Lipo, north-east of Tato, et, the IAF had said. The AN-32 went missing after taking off from Jorhat in Assam on way to Mechuka advanced landing ground in Arunachal Pradesh.

The crash site indicates that the plane was on the flight path towards Mechuka. The wreckage was located some 12-kms north of the last habitation in Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh.