India Plane Carrying Passengers Disappears

The AN-32 is a Russian-made aircraft and is the main work horse of the Indian Air force they can fly for four hours without refuelling.

There are about 100 of these planes in the defence forces.

India's air force says it has lost contact with a transport plane carrying 29 people that has gone missing in the Bay of Bengal.

The AN-32 aircraft took off from Tambaram base in Chennai at 0830 local time, and was due to touchdown at the Port Blair military base in the Andaman and Nicobar islands at 1120.

The flight was supposed to last three hours but the control tower says it lost all contact with the aircraft around 15 minutes after take-off at a height of 21,000 feet.

The Defence Ministry tweeted: "Full scale search and rescue launched to look for an IAF AN-32 overdue at Port Blair since 1130 hrs. Max assets being deployed at earliest."

Indian Navy spokesperson D.K.Sharma said: "As of now we will term it as overdue. A full scale search and rescue mission has been launched."

Details of the passengers on board have not yet been released, but the Indian Defence ministry has confirmed they are service personal and six crew members.

The aircraft was transporting security personal to the island.