Naval survey ship picks up signals from missing Dornier aircraft: Defence Ministry

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, June 13, 2015: A naval survey ship has picked up signals from Indian Coast Guard’s Dornier aircraft, which went missing with three crew members on board on Monday night, announced the Ministry of Defence on Saturday.

 

Intense and sustained efforts to search and locate the missing Coast Guard aircraft are continuing round the clock by ships of the ICG and the Indian Navy in areas of probability for the last 110 hours.

Ministry of Defence spokesperson Sitanshu Kar, on microblogging website Twitter, posted a few photographs of a multi-coloured sheen of oil in concentric circles, which indicated oozing of oil. The sample of oil has been sent to the laboratory for analysis.

Twelve Coast Guard and Naval ships along with patrol boats of the Coastal Security group are involved in the search.

INS Sandhyak, a hydrographic survey vessel of the Navy, undertaking sub-surface search, detected intermittent transmission of 37.5 Khz, likely to be from the Sonar Locator Beacon (SLB) of the missing aircraft.

The transmission is around the position where the Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar had lost contact of the aircraft.

Submarine INS Sindhudhvaj is likely to arrive in the area late in the evening for further augmentation of sub-surface search.

The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has diverted its research vessel ’Sagar Nidhi’ and is likely to arrive in the area for augmenting underwater search by tomorrow.

The missing Dornier had on board Deputy Commandant Vidyasagar piloting the aircraft, his co-pilot and Deputy Commandant Subash Suresh and navigator/observer M.K. Soni -- all in their 30s.

The missing aircraft was deployed for surveillance along the Tamil Nadu coast and over Palk Bay.

It took off from Chennai airport at around 6 pm on Monday (June 8) for a surveillance sortie but did not return.

An official statement issued on Tuesday (June 9) said the last contact with the aircraft was made at 9 pm on Monday.

The last known location of the aircraft, as per Trichy radar, was off Karaikal in Puducherry, where it was tracked till 9.23 pm, 95 nautical miles south of Chennai.

"The aircraft was the latest induction in the Coast Guard inventory in 2014 and was being flown by a highly experienced crew," an official statement said.

 

Courtesy: Zeenews