Five Indian Air Force personnel were killed when an Antonov An-32 military transport aircraft crashed while landing at the IAF base in Jorhat, Assam, on Saturday, the Indian Air Force said in a statement carried by Ada Derana, citing AFP.
The Soviet-era twin-engine turboprop was on a “routine sortie” when it came down on approach to land, the IAF said. The service did not say how many personnel had been on board or whether any had survived; an IAF official briefing AFP on condition of anonymity told the news agency the co-pilot had survived the impact. India’s NDTV news channel broadcast footage from the crash site showing a thick black plume of smoke rising from wreckage that had broken into pieces.
“The Indian Air Force deeply regrets the loss of five personnel in the An-32 accident at Jorhat,” the service said, adding that it “extends its deepest condolences to the bereaved families and stands firmly with them in this hour of grief.” A court of inquiry has been constituted to determine the cause of the accident.
The An-32 is specifically configured for high-altitude operation and extreme-weather flying. India’s air force operates about 100 of the type to ferry military supplies and civilian aid to the country’s remotest mountainous regions in the northeast and along the disputed Himalayan frontier. The aircraft’s last major accident occurred in 2019, when 13 people were killed in a crash in Arunachal Pradesh state near the Chinese border.
Source: Five killed in India military transport plane crash — Ada Derana / AFP, June 13.
