PTI, ITANAGAR: The Indian Air Force (IAF) is making all efforts to airlift the stranded 12-member rescue team from the site where the AN-32 aircraft crashed in Arunachal Pradesh, an IAF official said Saturday. The team is stranded in the border area of Siang and Shi-Yomi districts for 17 days now at a height of 12,000 feet where its members were airdropped and retrieved the bodies of 13 people on board and the black box of the plane.
The team is waiting for the weather to improve so that they can be airlifted from the spot, he said. The IAF has been trying to retrieve the mountaineering team from the crash site as soon as possible.
Despite the ongoing active monsoon conditions, several sorties have been launched to reach the crash site, but excessive clouding has prevented helicopter landings there, Shillong- based IAF spokesman Wing Commander Ratnakar Singh said in a statement on Saturday.
The team has been reinforced with ration and other essential supplies and we are in constant communication with them through satellite phones, he said.
