The Hump: Graveyard Of Planes

The An-32 crash in Arunachal is the latest in the Hump’s long history of pulling down those flying machines.

- Abdul Gani in Guwahati

DURING World War II, almost 76 years ago, eight US Army Air Corps personnel went down in a B-24J aircraft in the subcontinent's mountainous north- eastern edge—now in Arunachal Pradesh. It was many years later that some remains were found. Since that first crash, dozens of aircraft, including helicopters carrying civilians and defence personnel, have been lost in this Himalayan region. The most recent was a twin-engine turboprop military transport aircraft, Antonov An-32, of the Indian Air Force that went missing on June 3 with 13 people on board. The spot where it crashed could be identified only after eight days of search-and-rescue operations involving satellite imaging, air force choppers and the navy’s long-range reconnaissance aircraft P-8i.

Another An-32 had crashed in Arunachal in June 2009, killing 13. Since 1995, there have been 13 air crashes in the state. In April 2011, then Arunachal CM Dorjee Khandu was killed when a Pawan Hans chopper crashed near Tawang. Another Pawan Hans copter caught fire the same month, also near Tawang, causing 16 deaths. This was a decade after the state’s then education minister Dera Natung had died with five others in a May 2001 chopper crash in the same area.