Indian space agency ISRO to use RISAT to locate missing IAF plane AN-32

To find out the missing Indian Air Force plane that went missing on Friday morning with 29 people on board ISRO will be using its Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT).

“We will be using RISAT to locate the missing aircraft. The satellite can take pictures both during the day and night. It can see through the clouds,” ISRO Chairman AS Kiran Kumar told a news agency. Isro's satellites could be tilted to some extent to look at a different place in times of need, he added.

RISAT's active microwave remote sensing provides cloud penetration and day-night imaging capability. The unique features enable applications in agriculture, particularly paddy monitoring in kharif season and management of natural disasters like flood and cyclone, Isro had said earlier about RISAT.

IAF AN-32 aircraft went missing on Friday over the Bay of Bengal off the Chennai coast. Search and rescue operation by Indian Navy and Coast Guard, which went on through the night, continued on Saturday and more assets were deployed.

Two P8I surveillance aircrafts and two Dornier are continuing the search while one Dornier is on standby at Port Blair. While another AN 32 and two C-130 Hercules aircrafts and Mi-17 V5 with floats are also on standby. Currently 13 ships of the Indian Navy and four ships of Coast Guard are involved in the search operation.