The mortal remains of the 13 brave air-warriors have been recovered and sent to Air Force Station, Jorhat, officials said on Thursday.
The rescuers have recovered six bodies and remains of seven others from the site where the Indian Air Force An-32 aircraft crashed in the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh on June 3 afternoon.
Wing Commander of the IAF, Ratnakar Singh said that the mortal remains will be sent to their hometown, where funeral as per service customs will be carried out.
Also read: Arunachal: Bodies of all 13 on board ill-fated IAF aircraft AN-32 recovered
“Indian Air Force stands with the families and next-of-kin of all the air-warriors who lost their life in the line of duty. IAF thanks Indian Army, Indian Navy, NTRO, State administration and civil population for their unstinted support during search and rescue operations,” he said.
Six bodies and remains of seven others have been recovered from the site where an Indian Air Force An-32 aircraft crashed in the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh earlier this month.
The wreckage of the missing aircraft was located by a Mi-17 helicopter on June 11, following which a massive operation to search for the bodies or possible survivors was launched.
Thirteen IAF personnel were on the aircraft.
The first seven bodies were recovered on June 13. On Friday, the search teams recovered the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR) of the aircraft that crashed in Arunachal Pradesh.
The plane, a Soviet-designed twin engine turboprop transport aircraft, had vanished from the radar around 1 pm on June 3 within 35 minutes of flying from Assam’s Jorhat to Mechuka, a military landing strip in Arunachal Pradesh.
A team of 16 mountaineers from the IAF and the Indian Army along with five civilian mountaineers combed the site of crash 16 km north of Lipo, northeast of Tato under West Siang district, at an approximate elevation of 12,000 feet.
After the disappearance of the aircraft, the IAF embarked on an extensive search operation under the direct supervision of the Eastern Air Command headquarters at Shillong.
Two days after searching the wreckage, the Indian Air Force had announced there were ‘no survivors’.
The debris was found in the mountains at a height of around 12,000 feet. It was apparent that the An-32 had crashed into a mountain amid bad weather and poor visibility because of clouds.