NEW DELHI — India’s defense minister was overseeing an aerial search of the Bay of Bengal on Saturday for an air force transport plane that disappeared with 29 people aboard.
The aircraft went missing on Friday en route from the southern city of Chennai to Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. The flight, covering 1,375 km, was supposed to last three hours. The Russian-made AN-32 could go for four hours without refueling, Defense Ministry spokesman Nitin Wakankar said.
The ministry said in a tweet that Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar was overseeing the massive search operation for the plane, which was making a routine courier flight and was carrying service personnel along with the crew.
Air force spokesman Anupam Banerjee said the last communication from the plane was about 15 minutes after takeoff.
It wasn’t known if the weather was bad during the flight, though monsoon season brings heavy winds and storms that can cause turbulence and flight delays around South and Southeast Asia.
Sixteen ships, a submarine and six planes are involved in the search for the plane that disappeared while on a routine re-supply flight to remote islands in the Bay of Bengal on Friday.
Military officials said the weather had been rough in the Bay of Bengal over the last two days because of the monsoon season.
There were 21 military personnel on board the missing plane including six crew. The other people on board were civilians, and some family members of soldiers deployed on the islands.
The Defense Ministry said two high-tech naval surveillance planes, four other naval and coast guard planes, along with 16 ships and a submarine were searching for the aircraft in one of India’s largest search and rescue operations in recent years.
The submarine had been deployed to locate transmissions from an emergency locator beacon on the aircraft. The AN-32 is a workhorse of the air force, chosen for its ability to operate from short runways.
