Will go into AN-32 crash, ensure such incidents don’t reoccur: IAF chief

PTI, Jun 15, 2019, 6:59 PM IST

Hyderabad: The Indian Air Force would ascertain the cause of the recent crash of an AN-32 aircraft in Arunachal Pradesh and take steps to ensure that such incidents do not recur, IAF chief B S Dhanoa said Saturday.

His comments came days after the wreckage of the aircraft was found in a remote area in Arunachal Pradesh, more than a week after it went missing with 13 people on board.

“We have recovered the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder…We will go into the detail (to ascertain) as to what happened and how do we make sure that it does not happen again,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Combined Graduation Parade at the Air Force Academy in Dundigal near here.

“In Arunachal Pradesh, the way we fly, the terrain is very treacherous and most of the time, it is cloudy…When you are flying in that terrain, in that cloudy weather, there have been many, many, not only Air Force, even otherwise, Pawan Hans and all, lot of accidents, because of controlled flight into terrain,” he claimed.

Noting that there were procedures to make sure such accidents do not recur, he said, “.. need to review what happened and we don’t have such an accident again.”

The Russian-origin aircraft went missing in the afternoon of June 3, around 33 minutes after taking off from Jorhat in Assam for Menchuka in Arunachal Pradesh.

After eight days of a massive search operation, the wreckage of the plane was spotted by an IAF chopper on Tuesday at a height of 12,000 feet near Gatte village on the border of Siang and Shi-Yomi districts. All 13 on board the aircraft died.

During his address at the Air Force Academy, Dhanoa said the institution has always been close to his heart since he graduated from there 41 years ago.

Earlier, the IAF chief also reviewed the Combined Graduation Parade at the Academy.

He exhorted the cadets to have high professional competence and be a good leader of men at the same time.

A total of 152 flight cadets, including 24 women, graduated as Flying Officers of the IAF. The flight cadets, who were commissioned, include a woman, named Anjali, in fighter branch.