Mumbai: A total of 693 hours of Terrestrial search, 196 hours of air search, over 12 agencies carried out what is now being considered the longest and largest search in India's maritime history. This is the story of hunt for coastguard Dornier 791.
On June 8, the Dornier with three crew members left Chennai International Airport for a routine night surveillance. But never returned. Subsequently, operation Talash was launched.
The operation started with four ships and a long range maritime surveillance aircraft of the Navy. A dozen warships of the navy and coastguard soon joined the combing operation.
Coastguard also sought help of Reliance Industries for the Multi Support Vessel Olympic Canyon.
Giving details of the massive search operation SP Sharma, Inspector General of Coastguard said “this is an unprecedented search operation with such massive force levels and for so many days”.
It took 33 days before the wreckage of the Dornier was recovered from the seabed at a depth of 990 metres. For the coastguard, the challenges were many. The seabed had a steep gradient making it difficult to carry out the search operation. The seabed in the area was at a depth of 700-900 metres. Most companies told the coastguard that the maximum depth they could go to was 610 metres.
What remains a mystery is the cause of the accident. The flight data recorder which has recorded at least 30 minutes of the cockpit transmission will certainly help the board of inquiry to piece together what led to this fatal accident. Was it a human or a technical error? Will we ever come to know?
However the family members of the ‘missing’ Navy officers are still hopeful that they will come back.
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