The lack of locator beacon has made it extremely difficult for the rescue ships to track the missing aircraft's wreckage.
The lack of locator beacon has made it extremely difficult for the rescue ships to track the missing aircraft's wreckage.
New Delhi:
Even as the search for missing Indian Air Force's AN-32 transport aircraft continues, it has emerged that the airplane lacked basic search equipment that could have helped in tracking it.
According to an NDTV report, the aircraft was not equipped with an underwater locator beacon which would have helped in detecting the exact location of the debris.
The lack of locator beacon has made it extremely difficult for the rescue ships to track the missing aircraft's wreckage.
The AN-32 transport aircraft had gone missing on July 22 after it took off from Chennai with 29 people onboard. The aircraft was enroute to Port Blair and was flying over the Bay of Bengal when it went off radar.
While searching for the missing aircraft, rescuers failed to pick up any emergency transmitter signals, officials had said. This can now be explained by the new finding that the plane lacked an underwater locator beacon.
Sixteen ships, a submarine and six aircraft had been deployed to search for the Russian-made AN-32 that disappeared on a routine re-supply flight to remote islands in the sea.
Rajan Bargotra, a senior coastguard official, had said that the absence of signals from an emergency locator transmitter (ELT) had made the operation very difficult.
Moreover, scientists at the Indian Space and Research Organisation too had joined the search operation and were using satellites in the search, while the navy had scoured an area of about 14,400 square nautical miles.
The absence of locator beacon has raised serious concerns about the safety measures taken by the Indian Air Force.
