Navy plane crashes into sea, 2 officers missing
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 25
Two Indian Navy officers, including a woman, are missing after a surveillance plane, a Dornier, crashed into the Arabian Sea around 37 km south-west of the naval base in Goa on Tuesday night.
The plane went down 51 km west of the Karwar naval base in northern Karnataka.
The Navy has launched a massive search operation pressing 12 of its warships and helicopters to look for co-pilot Sub Lt Nagori and observer Lt Kiran Shekhawat.
The search and rescue operation is likely to continue for another 72 hours. The plane belonged to 310 Cobra squadron of Goa-based INS Hansa.
A third officer, Commander Nikhil Kuldip Joshi, survived the crash, was picked up by a passing fishing boat, Niharika, belonging to a fishing hamlet off the coast of Karwar.
Commander Joshi, who was captaining the plane, was found floating in the sea in an unconscious condition with his life jacket on.
He was 10 km south of the point where the plane lost radio contact at 10.08 pm yesterday. He was located an hour later, indicating he had been swept away by the current.
“The aircraft is feared to have ‘ditched’ soon after losing radio contact,” Indian Navy spokesperson Captain DK Sharma said.
The automated “radio signal beep” on the surviving officer’s life jacket was not functioning. The radio “beep” allows ground-based controllers to zero in on the missing man, sources said.
The fishermen called up the marine authorities and turned their vessel towards Karwar realising the floating man was wearing a naval aviators uniform.
Midway, an Indian Navy Fast Interceptor Craft picked him up. He at presently at naval hospital ‘Patanjali’ in Karwar and is reported to be stable, said the Navy tonight.
The Navy flew in its team of doctors and specialists from Mumbai and Goa to Karwar in the middle of the night to tend to Joshi.
Sources said the aircraft was practising a low-altitude flight while training for a search and rescue mission at night. The flying is done around 200 feet above the sea level and a minute error can lead to a crash.
Dorniers are used for electronic surveillance. The pilots had taken off from Goa at 6.30 pm and were returning to base when the accident occurred. This is the first time that a Dornier has been lost since these were inducted in early 1991.
Admiral RK Dhowan, Chief of the Navy, flew down to Goa and took stock of the operations. He met the families of the aircrew and Commander Joshi at Karwar before returning to Delhi in the evening.
This is the third crash of the Naval Air Wing since 2012. In October 2012, a Navy Cheetah helicopter crashed off Goa, killing three personnel. The rotor of the copter blew off in what was suspected material failure. In March 2013, a Cheetah helicopter crashed off Vishakhapatnam harbour and two pilots were reported missing. This too was a case of suspected material failure.
The Navy has a fleet of more than 200 planes and helicopters. Besides the 36-strong Dornier fleet, the Navy flies the MiG 29k fighter jets, Sea Harrier jets, Boeing P8-I long-range maritime surveillance and antisubmarine warfare aircraft, the IL-38 Sea Dragon, and the TU 142 aircraft. The helicopters include the ALH produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the Kamov-series from Soviet Union/Russia, the Seakings and the HAL-produced Cheetah, based on French-origin Lama Alouette Ill.
