IAF AN-32 wreckage found in a village(Lead:IAF)

Shillong, June 10 (ANI): A day after the IAF AN-32 Transport Aircraft went missing, the wreckage of the aircraft was found on Wednesday evening at a village, located in northwest of Tato in Arunachal Pradesh.

Talking to ANI, Wing Commander R. Sahu, Public Relation Officer for Ministry of Defence HQ at Shillong said that it is now beyond doubt that the Aircraft which went missing since 4.30 PM yesterday had crashed leaving no survivors of the 13 onboard.

Sahu informed that Commanded by Wing Commander G.S. Butalia, a very experienced pilot with many sorties in this region, the aircraft carried 7 Air Force personnel and 6 Army personnel.

The deceased from the IAF' AN-32 included another Wing Commander PK Saji, two Sqadron Leaders P. Siddharth and Manas Mishra, Flight Lietuneant Varun Kumar, Master Warrant Ramesh and Aircraftsman Sanjay Kumar.

The names of the army personnel were awaited from Army till filing of this report.

Sahu had earlier stated that search and rescue operations had been aggressively pressed into service involving the Army as well. Since IAF aircrafts were not able to take off from either the Jorhat or Dibrugargh airbases due to extreme inclement weather and the terrain was also very hostile with very less connectivity.

The AN-32 is a popular sight in the hills and valley of Arunachal Pradesh, as some villages, which till today, are not connected to the outside, depend solely on the IAF for their essential commodities, and medical supply. (ANI)