An Indian Air Force (IAF) transport aircraft has been missing in the Indian Ocean for the past 38 years without a trace. Almost four decades have passed but there has been no official or unofficial word on what happened to the brand-new AN-32, purchased from the USSR, when it was being flown from Ukraine to India on a ferry flight on March 25, 1986.
It took decades to solve the mystery of the AN-12 transport aircraft, which went missing in the mountains of Spiti in Himachal Pradesh in 1968 even though pieces of wreckage had been found way back in 1987. However, the vast Indian Ocean has not thrown up any clues about the fate of the AN-32 which went missing flying over it with a crew of three and four passengers. All seven have been presumed dead over the years.
The AN-32 multipurpose transport aeroplane was developed on an order from the IAF and its design was based on the AN-26 aircraft though it differs from the latter in more powerful engines, enhanced wing high-lift devices and roller track equipment installed in the aeroplane.
The aeroplane was manufactured at the Kyiv Aviation Plant in Ukraine from 1982 to 1996 and entered service in the IAF in the mid-1980s.
Wing Commander Ulliada Muddappa Bheemaiah and Wing Commander Emelian Augustin Fernandez were at the control of the AN-32 aircraft (serial number K-2729), which was being flown on that day in March 1986 to Jamnagar in Gujarat.
Festive offer
There were three AN-32 aircraft flying to India on that particular day and on the leg between Dubai and Jamnagar they had to land at Muscat in Oman for some formalities, during which they refuelled.
It was in the Muscat-Jamnagar leg of the flight back home that the AN-32 went missing sometime around 2 pm. The other two aircraft landed without any incident at Jamnagar and when the missing aircraft did not respond to radio contact not could be seen on radar, it was understood by authorities on ground that something was amiss.
There was no distress call from the aircraft and the subsequent search launched by multiple nations including the US, whose Navy was operating an aircraft carrier group in the region, threw up any clues or spotted any wreckage of the aircraft which may have plunged into the ocean.
There has been no official word from the IAF on the fate of the AN-32 and no details of the subsequent inquiry held into its disappearance have been made public.
The USS Enterprise and AN-32
Conspiracy theories over the years have pointed towards an accident that may have taken place in mid-air as the USS Enterprise (CVN 65), a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was operating in the same region. It has been suggested by many commentators, albeit without any proof, that a collision may have taken place between the AN-32 and an aircraft operating from USS Enterprise.
A former IAF transport pilot, who did not want to be named, referred to some “incidents” that had earlier taken place under similar conditions. “US fighter aircraft would appear close to our aircraft on the ferry flight to India and often would be very close above them or underneath them and these facts had been reported to the [IAF] headquarters,” he said.
US Navy records on USS Enterprise
The official US Navy records pertaining to the USS Enterprise’s activities near Muscat in that same time frame, however, tell a different story. The US aircraft carrier is known to have launched search and rescue sorties in the Indian Ocean after the missing AN-32 was reported to them.
However, US Navy records show that the USS Enterprise was closely shadowed by Indian Navy IL-38 aircraft when it was carrying out an exercise earlier in March 1986 near Sri Lanka and later off the coast of Karachi in Pakistan.
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“As the ships neared Sri Lanka, poor weather resulted in minimal interaction between Enterprise and the Indian Navy, the latter apparently conducting an annual training exercise west of Goa, India. Nonetheless, Enterprise was located by two Indian IL-38 Mays during the afternoon watch on 12 March 1986, the Mays passing five times near the carrier with Closest Points of Approach (CPAs) of as little as 500 yards,” the records say.
The next day, another Indian IL-38 reconnoitred, followed by the Russians staging IL-38s out of al Anad, Yemen. The USS Enterprise then visited Karachi, Pakistan, where the ship conducted an air and surface demonstration for key Pakistani leaders on March 19-20.
“Both the Russians and the Indians exhibited more than passing interest in the exercise, the former sending a pair of Mays from al Anad, which made one pass each in stepped up formation, and the latter sending an IL-38 making no less than four passes of Enterprise barely two minutes after the second Soviet pass,” the records state.
It was against this background that the US carrier group proceeded to Oman where it was anchored at al Masirah Island, Oman, on March 22, 1986, just three days before the AN-32 went missing.
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“Enterprise stood out of her anchorage on the afternoon watch on the 24th, returning during early morning of the next day, and was underway again during the afternoon of 25 March, returning in the early morning of the 26th. While anchored at al Masirah, Enterprise again found herself monitored by Soviet Mays out of al Anad,” the US records say.
The records further say that, subsequently, after receiving word about a downed Indian AN-32 south of Karachi, “Enterprise launched two Search and Rescue (SAR) flights in support of the Indians.”
Under these circumstances it is natural that there has been speculation on how the AN-32 went missing. Nearly four decades later, nothing concrete has emerged regarding the fate of this missing aircraft and the families and loved ones of the crew and passengers still await closure.