Search for missing coast guard aircraft Dornier continues

Coast Guard refutes television reports that the aircraft was found under water

Search for missing coast guard aircraft Dornier continues for sixth day, with the Coast Guard refuting some television reports that claimed the aircraft was found under water.

The Dornier CG 791 went missing with three officers on board, while it was returning from a regular surveillance sortie on the evening  of last Monday. The last known location of the aircraft was 16 nautical miles off Chidambaram coast at 9:23 p.m.

.
The search for the missing ICG aircraft continues uninterrupted by Coast Guard and Naval ships and aircraft for the sixth consecutive day. Submarine INS Sindhudhvaj has arrived in the area at 2200 hrs on June 13 and commenced underwater search to confirm the transmission of 37.5 Khz from Sonar Locator Beacon (SLB) of the missing aircraft, as reported by INS Sandhayak.

The outcome of the submarine search is expected by late evening. In order to provide further fillip to the search, ICGS Vighraha has been joined the search with the National Institute of Oceanography (NIOT) team on board and a black box detector.

The search probe will be lowered at sea for reception of the signal from the beacon of the aircraft, said Coast Guard officials.

A total of eight ships and aircraft of the ICG and IN continue to search in the most probable area. A total of 124 hours have been flown by the ICG and IN aircraft towards search.

National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad, was requested to provide with the satellite imagery for analysis of the area for possible location of the aircraft.

Coast Guard's statement added, they have intimated presence of cloud cover in the most probable area precluding detection of any object on sea surface. Second imagery by the microwave satellite is scheduled today.

In addition to the ongoing massive search for the missing aircraft, a distress from fishing boat Indra was promptly responded to by ICGS Abheek. The distressed fishing boat along with 10 fishermen were rescued and safely brought to Puducherry harbor.