CHENNAI:The uneven Eastern Coast is affecting the efforts of Indian Navy’s submarine Sindhudhvaj and hydrographic survey vessel INS Sandhayak to pinpoint the exact location of Indian Coast Guard’s Dornier aircraft and its three member crew which went missing more than a week ago.
The intermittent feeble signals received on Saturday raised hopes of locating the aircraft on Sunday morning as the search operation that earlier focussed on the surface went underwater 16 nautical miles east of Chidambaram, the place where the air traffic control (ATC) Radar lost links with the aircraft.
The uneven Eastern Coast sea bed proved a hurdle for Indian Navy vessels to pinpoint the exact location of the aircraft, as the signals were intermittent.
The submarine and sonar vessels emit sonar pulses and ‘listen’ to the echoes. As the surface is uneven, they could only pick intermittent signals based on which they couldn’t fix the exact location.
“This Eastern Coast is different from the Western Coast. In the Western Coast, the sea bed is more of a slope. But in the case of the Eastern Coast sea bed, it is uneven.
It is suddenly uneven and deep even if you go beyond 10 metres,” said a Coast Guard official.
Thus, the hopes are now being pinned on the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) research vessel ‘Sagarnidhi’ to trace the missing aircraft.
D Rajasekhar, group head, Vessel Management Cell, NIOT, told Express that Sagar Nidhi required scientific equipment with which the ship could try its best to identify the aircraft’s location.
“We got the coordinates from Coast Guard and by using it we are hopeful of locating the aircraft if under the sea,” he said.
The research vessel is equipped with multi-beam echo sounder, a device typically used by hydrographic surveyors to determine the depth of water and the nature of the seabed.
Similarly, the vessel also has sub-bottom profiler, which is designed to look below the sea floor at structural geology and sedimentation patterns.
“By mapping the given area, we are hopeful of giving location of the aircraft,” said Rajasekhar.
“We have a scientific plan to locate the aircraft. Once the location is fixed, which could take a couple of days, the further course of action will be decided,” the NIOT scientist said.
It is likely that by Tuesday afternoon, a positive result may come from the search and rescue operation.
It was Sagar Nidhi which helped retrieve a heavy torpedo lost by a naval laboratory during a technology demonstration trial off Visakhapatnam in December last year.
It is learnt that a similar search plan is being made to locate the Indian Coast Guard’s Dornier aircraft.
The Vessel Management Cell, NIOT is manning the communication room for last 24 hours and is constantly in touch with the ship.
After days of futile search, Inspector General SP Sharma, Commander, Indian Coast Guard (East) is now hoping to get positive results from Sagar Nidhi by Tuesday afternoon.
“Once we fix the exact location, we would press into service Reliance India Limited’s MV Olympic Canyon with remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) for salvage work. This we hope will be done by Wednesday,” Sharma said.
Meanwhile, Indian Coast Guard on Monday said the Indian Navy submarine during the under water search picked up feeble or sporadic signals in the frequency band of 08 to 40KHz presumably from the sonar locating beacon of the missing aircraft from near the same location indicated during sonar scan by the naval ship.
