NEW DELHI: The black box of the AN-32 transport aircraft that crashed in a heavily forested mountainous area in Arunachal Pradesh 10 days ago was retrieved on Thursday. The box includes the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder and an analysis of the data will allow the Air Force to establish the cause behind the crash.

A team of mountaineers and Special Forces had managed to recover the bodies of the 13 personnel from the densely forested mountainside where the plane went down. The mortal remains of the 13 Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel on board of the ill-fated AN-32 transport are expected to be flown out of the crash site today. IAF said that no effort was being spared in ensuring expeditious transfer of their mortal remains to their parent base at Assam's Jorhat.

The bodies of the crash victims were found to be dismembered, state government official Gijum Tali had earlier told IANS.

The personnel who lost their lives in the tragic crash were identified as Wing Commander G.M. Charles, Squadron Leader H. Vinod, Flight Lieutenant M.K. Garg, Flight Lieutenant S. Mohanty, Flight Lieutenant A. Tanwar, Flight Lieutenant R. Thapa, Warrant Officer K.K. Mishra, Sergeant Anoop Kumar, Corporal Sharin, Leading Aircraftman S.K. Singh, Leading Aircraftman Pankaj, NC(E) Putali and NC(E) Rajesh Kumar.

The IAF has ordered a court of inquiry into the accident, one of the worst involving a military aircraft in recent years.

The Russian-origin aircraft went missing on the afternoon of June 3, around 33 minutes after taking off from Jorhat in Assam for Menchuka in Arunachal Pradesh. Resources from various agencies, including the ISRO, were brought into the operation to enhance its effectiveness. CARTOSAT and RISAT satellites of the Indian space agency also took images of the area, which assisted the search team in locating the aircraft.

After eight days of a massive search operation, the wreckage of the plane was spotted by an IAF chopper on Tuesday at a height of 12,000 ft near Gatte village on the border of Siang and Shi-Yomi districts.

The pictures for the crash site and the impact point of the AN-32 suggest that the aircraft had probably tried to clear a mountain top but failed to do so and crashed into it due to heavy cloud cover there. The aircraft was found 15-20 kilometres north of its designated flight path.

(agency inputs)

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