CHENNAI: A Dornier aircraft of the Chennai Coast Guard on Monday mysteriously vanished 16 nautical miles off Chidambaram, with the plight of the three crew members onboard still unknown.
The Coast Guard Dornier, which was on a routine surveillance sortie, took off from Chennai at 6.05 pm and was on its way back after carrying out a successful operation.
‘Off Task. Returning to Base,’ was the last message that was picked by the Air Traffic Control in Tiruchy airport despite the craft being outside its airspace, thanks to its high-end radar system. Inspector General SP Sharma, Commander, Coast Guard (East) told reporters here that the CG-791, on surveillance along the Tamil Nadu Coast and Palk Bay from the Coast Guard Air Station Chennai went missing along with the crew at 9.23 pm, 23 minutes after the last contact with ATC. The weather was clear and the non-pressurised aircraft was flying at an altitude of 9,000 feet. The crew — Pilot, Deputy Commandant Vidyasagar, Co-pilot Deputy Commandant MK Soni and Navigator Deputy Commandant Subash Suresh were among the best, having more than 2,000 hours of flying experience, said Sharma.
Another senior official in Delhi concurred. “There was no distress call by the pilots, who had good years of experience of flying such aircraft. Till we recover the black box and call data recorder, its disappearance is the biggest mystery for us.” Five Coast guard ships and four naval ships, along with P8I reconnaissance aircraft of the navy are combing the seas. Sources in Puducherry said they ‘are working on a lead’. A fisherman, Mukesh, who had ventured into the sea, said that he had seen a ball of fire falling at high speed 25 nautical miles south-east of Puducherry. This was the second incident involving a Coast Guard Dornier, with the previous crash happening in 1994, in which one officer reportedly died.