An IAF Antonov AN-32 broke apart and caught fire during an emergency landing in Assam, marking the fleet’s third major fatal crash in a decade.

JORHAT, June 13 — Five Indian Air Force personnel died Saturday morning when their Antonov AN-32 transport aircraft broke into two pieces and caught fire while attempting an emergency landing. It’s a devastating blow to the fleet.

They’ve identified the dead as Squadron Leader Prashant Singh, Flight Lieutenant Shubham Kumar, Sergeant Jitendra Sharma, and two Agniveervayu personnel, Khemaram Kumawat and Danish Alam.

A sixth crew member survived the wreckage but remains in critical condition. We don’t know the extent of their injuries yet, but it’s the deadliest military aviation disaster in India this year.

The flight didn’t last long. It took off from the Jorhat Air Force station around 10 a.m., tasked with a routine paradrop sortie to Chabua, military sources cited by the Indian Express confirmed.

But shortly after lifting off, the aircraft requested an immediate return. The pilots didn’t make it back safely.

We don’t yet know what triggered that distress call. The IAF confirmed the crash happened as the aircraft, attached to the 43 Squadron, attempted to touch down in the Rowriah area.

The landing wasn’t survivable. The heavy transport plane veered violently off the runway, crossed the parallel taxiway, and snapped before flames consumed the fuselage.

You can’t snap an AN-32 in half without catastrophic force.

Local witnesses told the Press Trust of India they heard a massive explosion shatter the morning calm. Smoke immediately engulfed the airfield, they said, and it wasn’t long before sirens followed.

Fire engines and military ambulances rushed the crash site to douse the flames and pull the crew from the burning metal, news agency ANI reported. They couldn’t save five of the men.

The Indian Air Force didn’t try to hide the severity of the incident. “The Indian Air Force deeply regrets the loss of five personnel in the An-32 accident at Jorhat, Assam,” the military branch stated on the social media platform X.

They’ve extended condolences to the bereaved families, confirming that crash site management and initial inquiries began immediately. The IAF noted the personnel made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty, adding that the force stands firmly with the families in this hour of grief.

So, the military constituted a formal court of inquiry to ascertain exactly why this plane fell from the sky. They aren’t leaving this to chance.

The IAF urged the public to hold off on speculation. But the history of this aircraft fleet speaks for itself. India bought the Antonov AN-32s from the Soviet Union back in 1984, and they haven’t been replaced. They’re critical workhorses, carrying troops into the most unforgiving terrains.

But they’ve also become a persistent liability. This marks the third major crash involving an AN-32 in the last ten years alone.

At least two of these specific aircraft have gone down since 2016, wiping out 42 military personnel in the process. It’s a grim toll.

On June 3, 2019, an AN-32 slammed into hilly terrain while heading to Mechuka in the West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh near the Chinese border. They couldn’t pull a single survivor from that wreckage.

That crash killed all 13 people on board. They didn’t stand a chance.

How many more times will the military pull bodies from the wreckage of a forty-year-old Soviet design when they can’t guarantee its safety? The IAF hasn’t offered an answer to that. Right now, their focus remains on the single surviving crew member fighting for their life in a military hospital.

And the families of Singh, Kumar, Sharma, Kumawat, and Alam must now plan funerals. They won’t get their sons back.

The 43 Squadron now has to reckon with the loss of its men and a machine that failed them. The military won’t find quick answers in the ashes. The court of inquiry has a massive mandate to examine the wreckage, the maintenance logs, and the final communications from the cockpit, but they aren’t going to rush it. They can’t afford to ignore the structural realities of an aging fleet.

We’ve seen these tragedies play out before. Solemn statements and inquiries will drag on for months. The wreckage at Jorhat is just the latest piece of a much larger, grim puzzle regarding the safety of India’s aging transport planes.

You won’t hear official condemnation of the AN-32 fleet today. The military needs these planes to function, so they’ll keep flying them.

But the men who fly them know the risks better than anyone. They strapped into that aircraft at 10 a.m. for a routine paradrop, and by noon, five of them weren’t coming home.

The investigation won’t bring them back.