Six bodies and remains of seven others were recovered from the crash site of An-32 in Arunachal Pradesh on Thursday, June 20. The bodies and the remains will be taken to the Indian Air Force base in Jorhat.
The wreckage of the missing aircraft was located by a Mi-17 helicopter of the IAF on June 12.
The aircraft's cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder or the black box were also recovered. The black box has suffered damage and an investigation by the Air Force to find out the actual cause of the crash may take more time, a defence spokesperson was quoted as saying in several media reports.
The IAF had confirmed on June 13 that there were no survivors in the crash site of its An-32 aircraft. Taking to Twitter, the IAF had tweeted: "Eight members of the rescue team have reached the crash site today morning. IAF is sad to inform that there are no survivors from the crash of An-32."
The Russian-origin An-32 aircraft went missing after it took off from Jorhat air base in Assam at 12.25 pm on June 3 for the Mechuka Advance Landing Ground in Arunachal Pradesh. The plane's last contact with ground agencies was at around 1.00 pm on the same day, within 33 minutes of taking off.
Total 13 members, including eight aircrew and five passengers, were on board the aircraft.
Those killed in the crash were identified as Wing Commander GM Charles, Squadron Leader H Vinod, Flight Lieutenant MK Garg, Flight Lieutenant S Mohanty, Flight Lieutenant A Tanwar, Flight Lieutenant R Thapa, Warrant Officer KK Mishra, Sergeant Anoop Kumar, Corporal Sherin, Leading Aircraftman SK Singh and Leading Aircraftman Pankaj.
IAF had deployed a Sukhoi-30 aircraft in addition to a fleet of C-130J and An-32 planes and Mi-17 and ALH choppers for the operation. The ground forces included troops from the Army, Indo Tibetan Border Police and state police.
