SAR aircraft missing - India

Coast Guard's Dornier aircraft with 3 crew members missing off Chennai (India)

Search and rescue operations are underway to locate Coast Guard's Dornier aircraft which went missing with 3 crew members on board off Chennai. (Via Indian Coast Guard website)

Indian warships and planes mounted a massive search operation on Tuesday for a Dornier aircraft that went missing overnight with three crew members on board.

The Coast Guard aircraft went missing more than three hours after taking off from Chennai airport at 6 pm on Monday for a surveillance sortie. Its crew comprised two pilots and a navigator.

This is the second incident this year involving a Dornier aircraft of the armed forces. In March, two crew members of a Dornier aircraft of the navy were killed when it crashed off the Goa coast.

Defence ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar said in a series of tweets that the Dornier was on a routine surveillance sortie over the sea. The last contact with the aircraft was at 9 pm and the radar at Tiruchirappalli tracked it till 9.23 pm, when it was 95 nautical miles south of Chennai, he said.