Berhampur, July 23: The family of Charan Moharana, who was aboard the Indian Air Force (IAF) AN-32 transport aircraft, is in grief as the aircraft went missing on Friday over the Bay of Bengal off the Chennai coast which also had 29 people on board. In spite of a full-scale search and rescue mission, The IAF aircraft is still untraceable which has left the family absolutely shattered. The mobile phone of Charan is unreachable and the family members were intimidated about the missing plane by one of their relatives.
Sudam Moharana, Charan’s father said that Charan had not made any sort of contact with them and they are also unable to reach him over phone. At around 3 PM,his friend from Visakhapatnam informed them that the plane on which Charan was travelling had gone missing.
Describing it as a “routine sortie”, officials said that the upgraded AN-32 aircraft of the 33 Squadron, had took off from Tambaram Air Force Station in Chennai at 8.30 a.m., and was expected to land at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands at 11.30 a.m. The report submitted by Air Force Chief Marshal, Arup Raha to Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar stated that the recorded transcript of the Chennai air traffic radar showed the last pickup was 151 nautical miles east of Chennai, when the aircraft took a left turn thus having a rapid loss of height from 23,000 feet.
Charan, joined the Indian Navy in 2014 as a technician. He is a resident of Sukunda on the outskirts of Berhampur.
