Catastrophic event feared to be reason for Air force air crash; bad weather possible reason

Chennai, July 23: Various causes are being looked into as the reason for the Air Force plane crash but inclement weather is feared to be the reason behind the unfortunate event.

Naval and Coast Guard ships are continuing search for the missing Indian Air Force AN-32 aircraft which had 29 people on board with no sightings of any debris so far. Wing Commander Anupam Banerjee, Public Relations Officer for IAF told IANS news agency that the search was still on and any substantial development would be made known.

The upgraded AN-32 aircraft which belonged to the 33 Squadron had taken off from the Tambaram Air Force Station in Chennai at 8.30 am and was on its way to Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands when it went missing.

The plane, AN-32 is a twin engine turboprop, medium tactical transport aircraft of Russian origin, and is designed to fly even in emergencies.

According to a experienced pilot with the Indian defence forces told IANS that an AN-32 aircraft will not drop down like a stone or vanish into thin air in the case of normal emergency, as there will be reaction time.

“But in the case of a catastrophic threat, the pilots will not have the necessary reaction time,” he said.

The pilot said that such a development could only be due to a catastrophic accident in a “no talk/radio zone” or “dead zone”.

When asked about the probable cause of the aircraft vanishing suddenly, he said: “The possibilities of different catastrophic events happening in the sky cannot be ruled out.”

According to him, a plane caught in a strong thunderstorm is as good as a paper in a storm. “The storm will throw the plane like a stone,” he said.

Other reasons considered possible in the case of the missing plane include sudden failure of all the engines; devastating fire; fuel leakage, jamming of flight controls, loss of flight controls due to fire; power and electrical failure and others.