NEW DELHI: Navy chief Admiral RK Dhowan rushed for Goa naval base on Wednesday morning to supervise the search and rescue operation being underway to locate two missing Naval officers after their Dornier surveillance aircraft crashed on late Tuesday night.
Navy chief RK Dhowan is also expected to meet family members of the missing naval officers. According to Navy officials, Dornier, which was on routine training sortie lost its contact at around 10:08 pm and its last known position was was 25 nautical miles south South- West Goa. In accident, one naval pilot was rescued and full scale seach and rescue operation was launched to locate two more officers (one pilot and an observer).
So far, navy has launched nine of its warships including INS Satpura, INS Betwa, INS Subhadra, INS Koruva, INS Kondul, INS Makkar and INS Matanga and a Indian Coast Guard ship Amal. Dornier aircraft, produced by the Defence PSU HAL, has been known for its incident free track record.
Indian navy and coast guard have increased its surveillance on the western coast after an incident of a Pakistan terror boat made an attempt to sneak into Porabnader coastline. But after being intercepted, four occupants of the terror boat blew themselves.
In November, Navy lost its four personnel including an Officer after torpedo recovery vessel sank off the coast of Visakhapatnam. Naval headquarters has ordered a Board of Inquiry to establish reasons behind the Dornier crash which led to missing of two naval officers