india

Updated: Jun 20, 2019 17:33 IST

Six bodies and the remains of seven crew members aboard the Indian Air Force’s An-32 transport aircraft that crashed in Arunachal Pradesh on June 3 have been recovered from the crash site, a spokesperson of the IAF in Shillong said on Thursday.

The An-32 took off from Jorhat in Assam on June 3 and was on its way to an advanced landing ground at Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh’s Shi Yomi district when it lost contact with ground control.

A search team spotted the wreckage of the aircraft last week at a remote mountainous region of Arunachal Pradesh, eight days after it disappeared from radar screens and triggered frantic efforts by IAF and the army to locate the Soviet-origin aircraft.

Also Read | Nine days after AN-32 wreckage was spotted, bodies yet to be retrieved

The crash site was a thickly forested mountain slope at an approximate altitude of 12,000 feet.

Helicopters and planes scoured hundreds of square miles of the mountainous region before rescue workers received a clue about apossible location of the wreckage.

A mountaineering team trekked to the crash spot after being air dropped at a nearby location after two failed attempts. However, as clouds and rain disrupted chopper flight another team of 20 men including 11 porters was dispatched to the crash site on Sunday and arrived at the crash site on Wednesday.

“The plan was initiated when the weather and clouds did not allow any helicopter flight,” an IAF spokesperson said earlier this week when choppers could not take off because of bad weather.