Thaindian News

Shimla, Nov 12 (IANS) Snowfall in the Himalayan peaks once again hampered the search for the remaining wreckage of an Indian Air Force (IAF) MiG-29 combat jet that crashed over three weeks ago in the Lahaul Valley of Himachal Pradesh, officials said Saturday.

The search for the black box (flight data recorder) and the combat jet’s major portion is still on. The IAF last week confirmed that some remains of pilot Squadron Leader D.S. Tomar’s body were recovered.

“The search has been halted due to moderate snowfall in the region in the past two days. The search parties have moved down to lower peaks,” Deputy Superintendent of Police Khajana Ram told IANS over phone.

He said the weather was clear Saturday but it would take days for the mountaineers to return to their base camp set up at an altitude of 13,000 feet above Chokhang village, some 40 km from district headquarters Keylong.

From the base camp, the ground search parties were daily trudging the hills up to 16,500 feet to locate the wreckage.

Officials involved in the ground search operation said it would be difficult to locate the debris as a fair amount of snow accumulated in the area.

“Fresh snow has made treks treacherous. Now, search parties have to dig deep through the snow to recover the parts (of the jet),” an IAF official said.

A number of expert mountaineers and climbers have been deployed in the search, mainly focused on the Gangstang glacier.

Locals, who are assisting the IAF in search operation, said chances of snow at this point of time were quite high as most peaks range from 15,000 to 20,000 feet.

“After mid of November, there are chances of heavy snow. These peaks (where the search is on) generally get eight to 10 feet of snow in the winter season,” said Parkash Singh, a resident of Chokhang.

At a gradient of 70-80 degrees and in an avalanche-prone area, the progress could not have been faster, an IAF statement said.

An IAF AN-12 aircraft with 102 defence personnel on board crashed on the 17,400-foot-high Dakka Glacier in the Chanderbhaga ranges in Lahaul and Spiti Feb 7, 1968. Only three bodies have been recovered so far in many expeditions till 2009.

The cause is still a mystery as the plane’s black box has not been recovered.

In July 2003, local trekkers on way to scale the Chanderbhaga ranges spotted a body and some aircraft wreckage. The body had been almost reduced to a skeleton.

A Swedish woman’s frozen body was found on a glacier in Lahaul and Spiti in 2004, almost 25 years after she went missing in the region while trekking.

The Lahaul Valley, comprising over two dozen small, scattered villages, remains cut off owing to heavy snow accumulation in the Rohtang Pass (13,050 feet) — the only connection with Manali in Kullu district, amid temperatures of minus 25 degrees Celsius.