Debris of IAF’s An-32 That Went Missing Over Bay of Bengal in 2016 Found

New Delhi: The families of 29 personnel onboard an Indian Air Force An-32 that vanished over the Bay of Bengal in 2016 finally have a semblance of closure, with debris from the aircraft discovered after seven years.

On Friday, the Indian government confirmed the discovery of wreckage approximately 310 kilometres off the Chennai coast, matching fragments of a crashed An-32. “The search images were scrutinised and found to be conforming with an An-32 aircraft,” the government statement declared, highlighting the absence of any other missing aircraft reports in the area. This strongly suggests the debris belongs to the ill-fated IAF An-32 (K-2743).

The aircraft mysteriously disappeared on July 22, 2016, soon after taking off from the Chennai Air Force Station for its routine weekly trip to Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. With 29 passengers onboard, including crew, the An-32 vanished from radar screens over the Bay of Bengal, triggering India’s largest-ever search and rescue operation for a missing plane.

Despite extensive efforts, the search remained unsuccessful. On September 15, 2016, the Air Force was forced to make the agonizing decision to declare all 29 individuals onboard “presumed dead.”

The cause of the crash remains undetermined, and further investigation of the recovered debris may shed light on the events that led to the tragedy.