This Article is From Sep 03, 2009

Unprecedented search by land, air, water

Unprecedented search by land, air, water
New Delhi:
One of the key things that helped locate the CM's aircraft was SMS received at 12.06 pm on Wednesday.

1 pm on Wednesday: Air headquarters informed.

1.30 pm: Two Chetaks from Hakimpet and one MI-8 from Yalahanka base pressed into action.

3.30 pm: Advance light launched from Yalahanka base. (All helicopter were in a ambulance configuration)

4.30 pm: Dornier to locate ELT launched from Yalahanka. Route Yalahenka-Cuddapah-Srisaileem-Chittur- Yalahanka.

5.10 pm: Avro launched. Route Hyderabad-Kunoor.Search based on eyewitness and civil inputs.

6:30 pm: Lost aircraft procedure announced, Indian Air Force (IAF) decides to go on its own.

6:45 pm: Decision to press Sukhoi SU-30 for search operation.

8:10 pm: Two Sukhoi Su-30 pressed into action.

8:40 pm: IL-78 for air refueling launched. Mid air refueling by 11.30 pm.

2 am on Thursday: 3rd Su-30 pressed into action. IL-78 for ariel refueling launched.

By this time crisis committee group and IAF had used the flight path and the phone triangulation to zero down to 4 sq km area instead of 225 sq km.

6:30 am: Chetak pressed into action again from Kanoor.

8:30 am: Chetak spots. First spotting of chopper.

9:20 am: MI-8 presses commandos into action.

10:45 am: All bodies found.

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