Ingen tegn til den savnede An-32 i India - Curt Lewis

Missing AN-32 aircraft: Outdated locator beacon hampers massive search operations (India)

• Satellites, spy aircraft, fighters and foot soldiers conducting a search operation for the missing AN-32 aircraft are yet to find any trace of the wreckage
• A major problem in locating the aircraft is the outdated emergency locator transmitters or beacon installed in the cargo compartment of the AN-32
• No distress signals from the AN-32 have been detected yet, said an officer

File photo of an AN-32 aircraft (Courtesy: Reuters)

NEW DELHI: Satellites, spy aircraft, fighters, helicopters and foot soldiers are conducting a massive search operation for the missing AN-32 medium transport aircraft - which did not have modern avionics, radars or emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) - but are yet to find any trace of the wreckage in the densely-forested hilly terrain of Arunachal Pradesh.

The search operation is currently centered on the "probable crash zone" in the Along-Payum-Tato area, which has been calculated based on the last radar and radio contact by the ill-fated AN-32 with ground control units at 1pm on Monday, close to the China border in the West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh.

The AN-32, which was on its way to the Mechuka advance landing ground (ALC) from the Jorhat airbase in Assam, had six officers and seven other IAF personnel on board. "There were two sets of crew, with a pilot, co-pilot and navigator each, because one of them was on a familiarisation trip of the area," said an officer.

Even as C-130J Super Hercules aircraft undertook night sorties to scan the probable crash zone, the Navy also deployed a P-8I long-range maritime reconnaissance plane for the operation on Tuesday afternoon. Both the C-130Js and P-8Is have synthetic aperture radars as well as electro-optical and infra-red sensors that can help the hunt for a plane wreckage.

A major problem in locating the aircraft is the outdated "Sabre-8" ELT or beacon installed in the cargo compartment of the AN-32, which was yet to be upgraded with airframe strengthening, advanced avionics and radars to fly in difficult conditions, as was first reported by TOI.

Only 54 of the about 100 AN-32s in the IAF fleet, which were inducted from the erstwhile Soviet Union between 1984 and 1991, have been upgraded with "total technical life extension from the original 25 years to 40 years, overhaul and re-equipment" till now under an initial $400 million contract with Ukraine in 2009.
"No distress signals from the AN-32 have been detected yet. The ELTs, which have a limited battery life, get activated if the aircraft experiences an impact of 20G (20 times the force of gravity). The AN-32 upgrade project, apart from airframe strengthening, enhanced ground-warning systems, new weather radars, advanced GPS, multi-functional displays etc, also involves fitting two new modern ELTs on the twin-engine turboprop aircraft," said another officer.

But the supply of some spares, components and kits for the AN-32 upgrade project, under which the first 40 aircraft were "re-equipped" in Ukraine with the rest slated to undergo it at the Kanpur BRD (base repair depot), have been hit because of the bilateral problems between Russia and Ukraine over the Crimean Peninsula. "The upgrade project was to be completed in five years but has moved at a very slow pace," said the officer.