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New Delhi: An Indian Air Force transport aircraft that took off from Assam’s Jorhat earlier today with eight crew members and five passengers onboard has gone missing.
The Antonov An-32 took off at 12:25 pm for a military landing strip in Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh. The Air Force has launched a search operation to track down the plane.
The terrain under the flight’s route is mountainous and heavily-forested. The landing and take-off approaches to Mechuka are extremely difficult. The An-32 is a Russian-designed twin engine turboprop transport aircraft used extensively by the Indian Air Force for over four decades.
In 2016, an Indian Air Force An-32 disappeared while flying over the Bay of Bengal after taking off from Chennai for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
