Navy Dornier crash: Woman officer’s body recovered

Panaji, March 26:

The body of Lt. Kiran Shekhawat, who was one of the three Indian Navy crew of the Dornier-228 maritime surveillance aircraft which crashed into the Arabian Sea near Goa, was recovered on Thursday, navy officials said.

The body was recovered from the fuselage of the crashed aircraft. The commander was rescued from the sea soon after the crash, but the third crew member of the ill-fated plane is still missing, officials said.

“The body is being taken to Goa,” a navy official said.

The fuselage of the crashed Dornier-228 was located in the vicinity of its last known position and a team of divers was sent.

The Dornier-228 with three crew on board went down in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Goa on Tuesday night. Commander Nikhil Kuldip Joshi was rescued by a passing boat from a fishermen’s hamlet off Karwar and transferred to a naval fast interceptor craft.

Navy sources earlier on Thursday said one of the vessels deployed in the search and rescue operation detected a large metallic object suspected to be the fuselage.

The INS Makar, a naval hydrographic vessel, detected the metallic object, using its side scan sonar. The INS Matanga with naval divers also embarked for the area. IANS