Five Indian Air Force personnel die in Assam transport plane crash

Five Indian Air Force personnel were killed when a military transport aircraft crashed in Assam, officials said. The accident adds to the safety record of India’s Antonov An-32 fleet, a workhorse used to move troops and cargo.

The Indian Air Force said on Saturday that the An-32 aircraft was involved in an accident during a routine flight in the Jorhat region of the northeastern state. It said crash-site management and early inquiries were under way.

The Air Force said an investigation had begun to establish what caused the crash. It did not announce a cause or provide further details about the flight route, the identities of those killed or whether anyone else was on board.

NDTV broadcast images from the site that showed a heavy column of black smoke rising from the area. The channel’s footage also appeared to show the aircraft broken into sections.

The An-32 is a twin-engine turboprop transport aircraft. India’s air force operates about 105 of the planes, according to Al Jazeera and AFP, using them for personnel and cargo transport.

The aircraft type has been involved in previous fatal accidents in India. Al Jazeera and AFP reported that the last major An-32 crash occurred in 2019 in Arunachal Pradesh, near the border with China, killing 13 people.

Assam and Arunachal Pradesh are both in India’s northeast, a region where the air force uses transport aircraft to connect bases and remote areas. Officials have not said whether weather, mechanical failure or any other factor played a role in Saturday’s crash.

The Air Force’s inquiry is expected to examine the circumstances of the flight and the wreckage at the site. For now, the service has confirmed only the deaths of the five personnel and that the aircraft was on a routine mission when it went down.

This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.