Black Box of AN-32 aircraft recovered:India

Indian Air Force (IAF) on Thursday said it has recovered the Black Box of the AN-32 transport aircraft that crashed on June 9 in Arunachal Pradesh killing 13 armed forces personnel on board. "The Black Box which was recovered last night, has been taken to Jorhat airbase in Assam for carrying out analysis," IAF sources said here. "If the analysis facility in Jorhat is not able to decode the Black Box, it will then be taken to the nearest base repair depot where the process will be carried out," sources added. The IAF's workhorse cargo airplane had crashed killing seven Air Force men and six Army personnel who were on board after it took off from Mechuka advanced landing ground in Upper Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh. The aircraft, which belonged to a transport squadron in Jorhan, was flying to Mohanbari in Assam when the mishap occurred. It took almost 24-hours for the state police, para-military and IAF personnel to search and locate the crash site. The Ukraine built AN-32s were acquired by India in 1984 and currently IAF operates five squadrons of around 100 aircraft of this make. The AN-32s have the capability to carry 20 tonnes of cargo or 40 fully armed forces personnel. India has just signed a USD 400 billion deal with Ukraine for modernising the ageing fleet of AN-32s with IAF. An AN-32 had crashed in February 2000 at the Vijaynagar advanced landing ground in Arunachal Pradesh. Another aircraft of this type went down near Palam airport here in March 1999 killing 21 personnel on board. In 1992, two AN-32 transport aircraft collided mid air during formation flying.

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