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All 13 Air Force Personnel On Board AN-32 Dead

The Russian-origin AN-32 aircraft was going from Jorhat in Assam to Menchuka advanced landing ground near the border with China on June 3 when it lost contact with ground staff at 1 pm, within 33 minutes of taking off.

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All 13 Air Force Personnel On Board AN-32 Dead
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All 13 people on board the AN-32 aircraft which crashed in Arunachal Pradesh are dead, the IAF said after a team of rescuers searched the wreckage of the plane in a heavily forested mountainous terrain on Thursday.

An IAF official said there were no survivors from the crash of the AN-32 aircraft.

The families of the 13 personnel have already been informed that there are no survivors.

The IAF in a tweet said it stands by with the families of the victims.

Those who died in the crash are Wing Commander G M Charles, Squadron Leader H Vinod, Flight Lieutenants L R Thapa, MK Garg, Ashish Tanwar and Sumit Mohanty, Warrant officer K K Mishra, Sergeant Anoop Kumar, Corporal Sherin, LAC (leading aircraftman) S K Singh, LAC Pankaj, and non combatants Rajesh Kumar and Putali.

The Russian-origin AN-32 aircraft was going from Jorhat in Assam to Menchuka advanced landing ground near the border with China on June 3 when it lost contact around half-an-hour after taking off.

The wreckage of the plane was spotted by an IAF chopper on Tuesday at a height of 12,000 ft near Gatte village on the border of Siang and Shi-Yomi districts, after eight days of a massive search operation involving a fleet of aircraft and choppers as well as ground forces.

A 15-member team of rescuers were sent look for survivors in the accident Wednesday and eight of them reached the crash site on Thursday morning, an IAF official said.

PTI