An AN-32 aircraft of the Indian Air Force It crashed this Saturday upon landing at the Jorhat air base, in the state of Assam, in the northeast of the country. Five soldiers died in the accident, which occurred around 10 a.m. local time during what authorities described as a routine flight.
The institution released a statement on the social network X where it identified the victims: Prashant Singh, Shubham Kumar, Jitendra Sharma, Khemaram Kumawat y Danish Alam. All five crew members died in the line of duty, the Indian Air Force said.
«The Indian Air Force deeply regrets the loss of five personnel in the An-32 accident in Jorhat, Assam,» the institution said in an official statement. The text did not specify the technical circumstances of the accident.
The Air Force opened a formal investigation to determine what caused the accident. «A court of investigation is being established to determine the cause of the accident,» said the institution, which also publicly requested that no one speculate about the events until preliminary results are available.
Indian media broadcast images captured at the scene of the accident that showed a dense column of black smoke and the plane broken into several pieces on the runway.
The AN-32 is a Russian-made twin-engine aircraft with decades of service. The Indian Air Force has around a hundred of these aircraft, which continue to be active for military transport missions in different areas of the country.
This is not the first serious accident involving an AN-32 in Jorhat. In 2019, another plane of the same model and the same base took off and crashed near the border with China. That incident left 13 dead.
Saturday’s accident occurred during the landing phase, one of the most technically demanding stages for any aircraft. The ongoing investigation must establish whether there were mechanical or human failures or external conditions that contributed to the accident.
Jorhat is a strategic base for the Indian Air Force in the northeast of the country, a region of high geopolitical sensitivity due to its proximity to the borders of China and Myanmar.
«The IAF stands firmly with the affected families in this moment of pain,» the institution concluded in its statement, in which it extended its condolences to the relatives of the five deceased soldiers.
With information from AFP and AP.
