Shillong: An Air Force plane with at least 14 people on board has reportedly crashed in the eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
According to sources, IAF AN-32 aircraft with eight IAF personnel and six civilians took off from Menchuka in Arunachal Pradesh and went missing shortly after.
IAF authorities fear the AN-32 plane may have crashed.
The AN-32 plane had flown from Dibrugarh in Assam to Mechuka in Arunachal from where it took off again with the civilians for Jorhat at around 2 pm, after which the aircraft went missing, said IAF spokesman Wing Commander P Sahu.
The six civilians were being ferried as part of the IAF plane's regular sortie.
An aerial search operation over the dense forests and mountains of Arunachal Pradesh bordering Bhutan where the plane might have crashed was carried out but neither the wreckage nor bodies could be located, Sahu said.
The search would resume on Wednesday and army and paramilitary personnel in the area have been put on alert.
The AN-32 is a Russian-made transport aircraft which was acquired for the Indian Air Force in the 1980s. It is considered a safe aircraft. The last crash involving an AN-32 was at Delhi in 1999.
Details are awaited.
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