BHUBANESWAR: Even as mystery shrouds recovery of metal and engine wreckage days after a loud explosion off West Bengal coast during an air exercise triggering panic among tourists in Digha and Mandarmani, Defence officials on Tuesday denied that the wreckages were of any missile.
Sources said a group of fishermen netted remains of an engine possibly of a missile from the Bay of Bengal nearly 10 km off Shankarpur harbour in West Bengal on Monday. As the news spread, curious people gathered at the fishing base to have a glimpse of the wreckage.
While experts claimed that the wreckage could be remains of a missile fired as a target weapon against an interceptor missile in the past, some others said this could be parts of a target drone usually flown as part of simulation exercise by India Air Force (IAF).
“As P II is written on the body, people suspect the remains might be of a Prithvi-II which was used as a target missile and washed ashore after a long time. But we are yet to ascertain what was it,” said an official who visited the spot. Besides the police, Coast Guard and IAF have started investigation.
Dismissing the claims, a senior official of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said the wreckages were neither of any missile nor of any pilotless target aircraft.
“The missiles fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Abdul Kalam Island are angled towards south. Shankarpur, from where the wreckages are found, is located north of Balasore and we do not fire any weapon system towards the north. Moreover, target missiles cover a distance of more than 300 km and those cannot go towards Digha,” he said and added that no mission was conducted in the recent past.
On the loud explosion in the sky off West Bengal coast that jolted Digha and Mandarmani areas on Saturday, the officer said it was due to an air exercise involving Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter aircraft.
“When a fighter aircraft travels at a supersonic speed, it creates a shockwave which appears like a blast. It is not exactly an explosion, it is just a sound. No missile was tested from the ITR and there is no link between the explosion and the wreckage, recovered from the sea,” the defence official clarified.
However, the explosions were so powerful that sonic booms shattered window panes of establishments in Old Digha area. The explosion was also heard in Talasari-Udaypur, a beach resort nearly 100 km from Balasore.