Plane vanished THREE WEEKS ago in echo of MH370

Families' despair over missing plane that vanished THREE WEEKS ago in echo of MH370

FAMILIES of the 29 people on board an Indian Air Force plane that vanished mid-flight still have no news about their loved ones three weeks after the devastating incident.

Just minutes later, the aircraft dropped “very fast” as it moved near a radar blind spot 270km east of Chennai.

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That stood out to me.


http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/700800/Families-despair-missing-plane-AN32-India-Air-Force-MH370

The 'puzzling' disappearance of an Indian military plane

On 22 July, an Indian military plane with 29 people on board, including six crew members, went missing over the Bay of Bengal.

More than three weeks and a massive search operation later, there is no trace of the plane.
..The Antonov-32 transport aircraft took off from the southern city of Chennai (Madras) at 08:30 local time (03:00 GMT), for a three-hour flight to Port Blair, in the eastern archipelago of Andaman and Nicobar.

The plane climbed to a cruising altitude of 23,000ft (7,010m) over the sea before disappearing from air traffic control screens at approximately 09:12 local time, some 270km (167 miles) east of Chennai.

Seven to eight minutes before the aircraft vanished, the pilot said he was changing course to the right to avoid a thundershower cloud.

Records show it descended "very fast" from its cruising height and vanished from the radar. There was no distress call from the cockpit.

"It just disappeared - no SOS, no transmission at any frequency. That is the worrying part," says Mr Parrikar.

When it disappeared, the plane was on the fringes of an area of around 150-200 nautical miles where there was no radar coverage. Such "blind spots" over remote areas of land and sea are not uncommon...

...The plane was equipped with an emergency locator transmitter, a portable emergency locator transmitter which pilots activate in the cockpit and personal locator beacons, that are attached to life vests and dinghies. "We have been looking from signals from all three," says an official. "But we have received nothing." ..

But the aircraft was missing something crucial: the underwater locator beacons, or pingers, which are fitted to aviation flight recorders - cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder - and transmit signals at low-level frequencies from deep under water. They have a battery life of 30 days.

This appears to be a big chink in the armour of India's trusted transporter - none of the Antonov-32s were equipped with them. Since the plane vanished, the air force has been scrambling to put such beacons on these planes flying over the sea. Also, according to one report, the plane "reported three snags" in less than two weeks last month.

What does three snags mean in the last sentence?

Nvm I found it, another word for problems.

Finally, an updated article.

It's been 27 days since the plane disappeared on a 3 hr flight to Port Blair from Chennai, India. Port Blair is a city on the South Andaman Island.

I know there was a heavy rain cloud ahead, but why made him change directions? Would wind shear or something else have been a factor?
From this article -

Minutes before the disappearance, the pilot had said he was deviating to the right to avoid a heavy rain cloud
and
But 42 minutes after takeoff, the aircraft tilted to the left, descended swiftly from its cruising height of 23,000 feet and vanished from radar

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/18/asia/india-missing-plane-mystery/

Also, a link to Port Blair with maps.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Port_Blair

watcher9 said:

Finally, an updated article.

It's been 27 days since the plane disappeared on a 3 hr flight to Port Blair from Chennai, India. Port Blair is a city on the South Andaman Island.

I know there was a heavy rain cloud ahead, but why made him change directions? Would wind shear or something else have been a factor?
From this article -

Minutes before the disappearance, the pilot had said he was deviating to the right to avoid a heavy rain cloud
and
But 42 minutes after takeoff, the aircraft tilted to the left, descended swiftly from its cruising height of 23,000 feet and vanished from radar

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/18/asia/india-missing-plane-mystery/

Also, a link to Port Blair with maps.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Port_Blair

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Finally! Thank you watcher! :loveyou:

Tulessa said:

Finally! Thank you watcher! :loveyou:

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You are welcome.
I can't believe how hard it has been to find new articles on this plane.

Nothing new via google news search

I did find another news source we can check.

http://zeenews.india.com/news/india...ish-due-to-catastrophic-accident_1910694.html

Strange how much attention some cases accumulate and others do not.
Sad for those families !
I would hate it if my loved one(s) were 'presumed missing and dead' with no one to bury and a grave to visit.

LietKynes said:

Strange how much attention some cases accumulate and others do not.
Sad for those families !
I would hate it if my loved one(s) were 'presumed missing and dead' with no one to bury and a grave to visit.

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Especially sad because this is military. If it was US military, we'd be hearing more

A GSI ship reported echos from some debris that could be from missing plane. Needs to be checked out.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nati...-objects-similar-to-missing-an-32-debris.html

watcher9 said:

A GSI ship reported echos from some debris that could be from missing plane. Needs to be checked out.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nati...-objects-similar-to-missing-an-32-debris.html

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It sounds like they also found the plane debris but they're not going to say it is the plane until they get their hands on it.

Chennai: Samudra Ratnakar, a ship owned by Geological Survey of India, has found objects identical to the debris of AN 32, the IAF aircraft that went missing with 29 people on board, sources at IAF said.

...“It is true that the ship has traced some echoes from the seabed in the Bay of Bengal well within the search area. But we cannot come to any conclusion immediately since there are a lot of process to verify to confirm whether the debris belongs to the AN 32 that went missing on July 22, 2016,” IAF spokesperson Wing Commander Anupam Banerjee told Deccan Chronicle.

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