IAF aircraft with 13 on board missing after take-off from Assam

An Indian Air Force transport aircraft with 13 personnel on board has gone missing in Arunachal Pradesh after it took-off from Assam's Jorhat on Monday afternoon.

The aircraft took off from Jorhat at 12.25 pm and was headed for Menchuka Advance Landing Ground (ALG) in Arunachal Pradesh. The last contact between the aircraft and ground agencies took place at 1 pm.

Seven Air Force officers and six air warriors were on board the Antonov An-32.

Indian Air Force has deployed all available resources, including Sukhoi-30 combat aircraft and C-130 Special Operations aircraft, on a search mission for locating the missing aircraft.

The IAF has also launched ground troops for search operations.

The Soviet-era aircraft was inducted into the Air Force in the 1980s and has been undergoing upgrades. The missing plane is not part of the upgraded An-32 fleet of the Air Force.

Three years ago, on July 22, 2016, an An-32 aircraft of the IAF had gone missing in the air with 29 people on board. The aircraft was traveling from Chennai to Port-Blair in Andaman and Nicobar when it went missing over the Bay of Bengal.