Mi-17 and Advanced Light Helicopters airdropped 15 mountaineers on Wednesday at a navigable point closest to the site of the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Antonov-32 transport aircraft crash in Arunachal Pradesh on June 3.
Nine of the mountaineers are from the IAF and four from the Army. Two are civilians. Officials said the well-equipped team of 15 camped overnight at the drop site due to the difficult terrain and weather. It would try to close in on the crash site and look for survivors on Thursday.
The ill-fated aircraft had 13 on board.
“The helicopters operated from Aalo [headquarters of the West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh] and other bases,” said Wing Commander Ratnakar Singh, IAF’s spokesperson based in Meghalaya’s capital Shillong.
An IAF chopper had on Tuesday located the crash at Lipo, about 16 km northeast of Tato, headquarters of Aruanchal Pradesh’s Shi-Yomi district. The site is close to Gatte village in the adjoining Siang district.
Shi-Yomi and Siang district officials said it could take a few days to reach the crash site because the mountains are steep — Lipo is about 12,000 ft above mean sea level — and jungles dense. Besides, the nearest Molo-Kaying road was washed away in heavy rainfall on June 9, they said.
Siang’s Deputy Commissioner Rajeev Takuk said five local mountaineers and some villagers and hunters had been roped in for the search and rescue operation. The mountaineers included two Everesters — Taka Tamut and Kison Tekseng. They had followed the flight path of the An-32 before it lost contact with the ground control over Payum circle of Siang district. “They scouted the western, southern and eastern parts in vain and were sent to the northern region [toward Lipo],” Mr. Takuk said.
Besides, the district authorities had engaged a large number of scouts for a daily fee of ₹800 each to locate the aircraft.
The Russian-origin AN-32 aircraft was going from Jorhat in Assam to the Mechuka Advanced Landing Ground, near the China border, on June 3, when it lost contact with the ground staff at 1 pm, within 33 minutes of taking off