Updated: Debris of crashed ICG Dornier 228 surveillance aircraft located

Debris of the Indian Coast Guard's crashed Dornier 228 surveilance aircraft, which went missing on June 8, 2015 after a routine ma...

Debris of the Indian Coast Guard's crashed Dornier 228 surveilance aircraft, which went missing on June 8, 2015 after a routine maritime surveillance sortie along the Tamil Nadu coast, has been located.

Indian Naval Submarine Sindhudhavaj, whilst on task for locating the missing aircraft, picked up a barrage of transmissions in a depth of 996 meters on 06 Jul 2015. This information was a vital source for deployment of the Reliance vessel, M/v Olympic Canyon to localize the search.

Landing gear of the crashed Dornier, as seen by the ROV

Consequently, the unrelenting and uninterrupted search which, included 693 hours of surface effort and 196 hours of air effort finally yielded positive results. The state of the art Multifunctional Support Vessel (MSV) of  Reliance India Limited with integrated Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) was able to locate and recover the Flight Data Recorder (FDR ) and one Line Replacement Unit (LRU) from a depth of 950 meters in a unique and first ever salvage at such depths.

The FDR could provide vital inputs towards establishing the cause of the incident. This is a major accomplishment to the unprecedented month old search operation.

Search will now focus to retrieve the bodies of the three onboard crew members including two pilots and an observer.

The recovery of Coast Guard Dornier 791 aircraft wreckage from the seabed off Tamil Nadu coast on 10 July 2015 was the result of ‘never say die’ spirit and the unrelenting efforts of Indian Coast Guard, Indian Navy and other agencies.

The ill-fated ICG Dornier CG-791 while on its routine night surveillance, suddenly disappeared from the radar located at Trichy when it was 32 miles north-east of Karaikal. At 2124 hours, the International Maritime Satellite (INMARSAT) terminal on board also suddenly powered off. Promptly the Regional HQs (East) launched a massive search and rescue (SAR) operational codenamed ‘Op Talash’ to locate the aircraft.

FDR unit

Simultaneously, four ships and a long range maritime surveillance aircraft, P-8I, of the Indian Navy (IN) were also deployed for the operation. The Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau was also requested to activate the community information mechanism to sensitize local populace and fishermen were also apprised about the incident so that they could report sighting of any debris at sea.

Initially, the Surface Search was undertaken based on information shared by Trichy radar. Subsequently, the initial position of the search was revised upto 70 nm seawards and the air search area was extended upto 180 nm based on inputs from Chennai ATC Radar and powering off of the INMARSAT.

The wreckage of the aircraft was found at depths of 990 meters in position 17 NM S/E of Cuddolore which included the flight data recorder, Two Engines, Propellers, Tail and tail cone, air frame parts, Maevest, the Single Line Replacement unit, parts of the fuselage, part of the landing gear and the Cockpit Voice Recorder by the Reliance Vessel Olympic canyon. The debris have been recovered from the sea bed by the vessel.

This is the second crash of a Indian Dornier 228 this year, after a similar crash of Navy Dornier in March. The aircraft which is locally manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, under license, was relatively new, joined the fleet in 2014.