DAWN/The News International, Karachi
India downs PN plane: 16 killed

By Sarfaraz Ahmed

KARACHI, Aug 10: All the 16 officers and sailors on board were killed on Tuesday when a Pakistan Navy training aircraft was shot down by two Indian fighter planes. The wreckage of the plane has been located 2-3 km inside Pakistan territory in marshy areas, Badin district, around 100 nautical miles off Karachi.

Those who were killed during their instrument flying training flight were identified as Lt Comdr Mehboob Alam, Comdr Farasat, Lt Rizwan Masood, Lt Azhar, Lt Zarrar, Sailor Mohammad Tariq, Sailor Nawazish, Sailor Mohammad Husain, Sailor Mohammad Sarwar, Sailor Aftab Ahmed, Sailor Mohammad Riaz, Sailor Wahid Iqbal, Sailor Mohammad Yasin, Sailor Mohammad Hafeez, Sailor S. Mehmood and Sailor M.N. Masood.

The plane - French-made Breguet Atlantic maritime patrol aircraft - had left PNS Mehran airbase in the city at 9.15am for a routine training flight to the coastal areas of southern Sindh. It was scheduled to return to its base after four hours.

The plane went missing at 11am after it made its last contact with the Karachi Airport Air Traffic Control at 10.50am. The helicopters sent out to search for the plane sighted its wreckage on the ground near Badin.

Pakistan authorities had in the day noticed the take-off of two Indian fighter planes over the marshy areas, but since it was a normal routine flight during peacetime none of those monitoring the ground radar had any inkling that the training plane would be intercepted, attacked or shot down.

The rescue teams that went to the area following the disappearance of the plane found the Atlantic debris strewn in an area of around one kilometre. The plane wreckage had created at least three big craters in the marshy area, and the helicopter that took the photographers of world media, including BBC and Reuters, found a sizable part full of red water, believed to be the blood of those killed in the plane.

According to one of the Naval officials who was first to reach the spot in the afternoon, the debris at some places was still burning.

He said blood had turned the colour of water into red. His account was later corroborated by a photographer who reached the spot with five other cameramen...