The Ministry of Defence has said that debris possibly belonging to the missing Indian Air Force (IAF) An-32 aircraft (registration K-2743) have been found on the sea bed approximately, 140 nautical miles (approx. 310 Km) from the Chennai coast.

The aircraft with 29 IAF personnel on board had had gone missing over the Bay of Bengal on 22 July 2016 during an op mission. The aircraft was enroute Tambaram, Chennai to Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Large scale Search and Rescue operations by aircraft and ships could not locate any missing personnel or the aircraft debris, the Ministry stated.

The discovery was made by an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) deployed recently by the National Institute of Ocean Technology, Ministry of Earth, at the last known location of the missing An-32.  This search was conducted at a depth of 3400 m using multiple payloads, including a multi-beam SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging), synthetic aperture SONAR and high resolution photography.

The press release said that analysis of search images had indicated the presence of debris of a crashed aircraft and on being scrutinized, was found to be conforming with an An-32 aircraft.

This discovery at the probable crash site, with no other recorded history of any other missing aircraft report in the same area, points to the debris as possibly belonging to the crashed IAF An-32 (K-2743), the Ministry stated.