NEW DELHI – In a series of Wednesday tweets, Congress Party spokespersonRandeep Singh Surjewala went on a full-blown attack against the IndianDefence Ministry for not upgrading the IAF’s An-32 aircraft after one ofthe military transport planes vanished from radars on Monday.
Surjewala first tweeted that he was sad to learn that the missingaircraft’s SOS Signal Unit was allegedly “obsolete”, having shared anarticle on Indian Defence News, suggesting that the search and rescuebeacon on the An-32 has been out of production for some 14 years. Themanufacturer as well reportedly said that it was effectively obsolete by2009.
He likewise made a reference to a 2016 case, where another An-32 vanisheden route to the Andaman and Nicobar islands with 29 personnel on board.Surjewala wondered as to why the Defence Ministry had not taken anymitigating measures to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Indian authorities have intensified the search and rescue mission to locatethe IAF An-32 military transport aircraft, which went missing on 3 Junewith 13 people on board near the Chinese border.
“IAF has intensified efforts to locate the missing AN-32. Despitechallenges posed by vegetation, inhospitable terrain and poor weather, thesearch has been expanded. All leads from airborne sensors are being closelyassessed and followed-up with search by aircraft & ground teams”, the IAFsaid in a Wednesday statement.
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The IAF has deployed two more Su-30s, two C-130Js, and two Advanced LightHelicopters in the region to track down the plane in addition to an IndianNavy P-8I spy plane that was scrambled on Tuesday.
The Indian Space Research Organisation has as well engaged two remotesensing satellites to take images of the area.
Back in 2009, India and Ukraine inked a $398 million deal to upgrade its101 An-32 aircraft, of which only 55 have been overhauled so far, whilemodernisation of the remaining planes has been awaiting equipment fromUkraine for the past three years.
