ELT signal near Nagpur airport causes panic; no sign of plane crash

The detection of an emergency locator transmitter (ELT) signal, which points to a downed aircraft or people in distress after a plane crash, near Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport caused panic for three hours in Nagpur in Maharashtra, officials said on Saturday.

An ELT is a battery operated transmitter that emits signals and is designed to get activated automatically when an aircraft experiences strong impact. It can also be manually activated by the pilot using a switch in the cockpit.  The ELT signal was detected by Air Traffic Control near Mohgaon Zilpi under Hingna police station limits in the north east airspace near the international airport on Friday, an official said.  "Police was alerted at 7:30pm and teams were dispatched for a search operation. Despite a thorough search over a vast area, no sign of any aircraft crash was found. The search was called off at 10:30pm after verification that it was a false alarm," he said.  A probe is underway to determine whether the signal was a legitimate distress call or a technical malfunction, the official added.