Chennai: Naval submarine INS Sindhudhvaj has begun an underwater search along the Tamil Nadu coastline to trace the missing Coast Guard Dornier aircraft even as an expert team started scouring the area to locate the plane’s cockpit voice data recorder.
“Submarine INS Sindhudhvaj arrived in the area (coastline in Karikkal-Cuddalore region) late yesterday and commenced underwater search”, a Coast Guard statement here said.
The search is to confirm the transmission of 37.5 Khz from sonar locator beacon of the missing aircraft, reported by INS Sandhayak on June 12, it said, adding, the “outcome of submarine search is expected by late evening”.
“In order to provide further fillip to the search, ICGS Vigraha has embarked with a National Institute of Oceanography (NIOT) team and a black box detector. The search probe will be lowered at sea for reception of the signal from the beacon of the aircraft”, the statement said.
Inspector General S P Sharma, Commander, Coast Guard (East), Chennai, told PTI that the missing aircraft is equipped with a cockpit voice data recorder.