FILE photo: A Dornier 228 aircraft operated by the Indian Navy
The Navy has found what could be the debris of a Dornier aircraft that crashed into the sea on Tuesday, leaving two pilots missing.
INS Makar, a naval hydrographic vessel, on Thursday detected a large metallic object around 60 metres deep in the sea off Goa, suspected to be the fuselage of the aircraft. Navy divers will soon start searching the spot.
Nine ships have been searching for the aircraft since the crash. The captain of the aircraft, Lieutenant Commander Kuldip Joshi, was rescued by a fishing vessel and is in hospital. A woman officer training to be an observer and a pilot are yet to be found. Sources involved in the rescue had yesterday talked about receiving signals from a life jacket equipped with a personal locator beacon.
The Dornier aircraft plunged into the sea some 25 nautical miles off Goa at around 10 pm on Tuesday. Lt Commander Joshi was rescued about an hour later by a fishing vessel, whose crew used a toll-free helpline to contact the Navy.
The Indian Navy operates 36 Dornier aircraft for search and rescue, maritime surveillance and commuter duties. This is the first crash of a Dornier since it was inducted into the Navy in the early 90s.
The crash is the latest in a series of disasters to hit the Navy, and comes just months after a naval ship sank off Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, leaving one worker dead and four missing.