Shillong: A transport aircraft of Indian Air Force with six air crew, including a wing commander, and as many civilians on Tuesday went missing after taking off from Mechuka in West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh and is feared to have crashed.
The AN 32 aircraft, on a routine air maintenance sortie, took off from Mechuka at around 2:00 pm for Jorhat in Assam after which it went missing, a spokesman at the Eastern Air Command here said.
The identity of the crew and other passengers were not disclosed but the spokesman said the air crew was led by a wing commander.
The plane, belonging to Jorhat air base, had taken off from Mohanbari in Assam's Dibrugarh district.
The Indian Air Force conducted an air reconnaissance in the afternoon in the Arunachal mountains looking for either the plane or its wreckage, the spokesman said.
Defence CPRO U Upasani in Kolkata said the search could not be carried out for long on Tuesday because of bad weather.
The army and paramilitary forces on the ground in the area have been alerted, he said.
Not ruling out the possibility of a crash, the spokesman said the search operation would resume early on Wednesday.