Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief B.S Dhanoa on June 15 said corrective steps will be taken to prevent a repeat of the June 3 AN-32 crash in Arunachal Pradesh which killed all 13 personnel on board.

"We have recovered the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder... We will go into the detail (to ascertain) as to what happened and how do we make sure that it does not happen again," Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa told media after reviewing the Combined Graduation Parade at the Air Force Academy in Dundigal, near Hyderabad.

The wreckage of the ill-fated Russian origin AN-32 transport aircraft was found eight days after it went missing while on a routine maintenance sortie from the Jorhat airbase in Assam to a forward airstrip at Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh, close to the disputed boundary with China. The search is still on for the mortal remains of the 13 on board who perished in the crash.

The Air Chief's comments come in the wake of a very troubled year so far for the IAF, which has lost 23 lives and 10 aircraft in a relentless string of crashes since January. This makes it the worst patch for the IAF in terms of air safety in over a decade even before half the year is complete.

The Air Chief's comments come in the wake of a very troubled year so far for the IAF, which has lost 23 lives and 10 aircraft in a relentless string of crashes since January. This makes it the worst patch for the IAF in terms of air safety in over a decade even before half the year is complete.

"In Arunachal Pradesh, the terrain is very treacherous and most of the time, it is cloudy...When you are flying in that terrain, in that cloudy weather, there have been many, not only Air Force, even otherwise, Pawan Hans and all, accidents, because of controlled flight into terrain," he stated, explaining the difficulty of flying over Arunachal Pradesh The wreckage was located by an IAF search team flying on a Mi-17 helicopter on June 11 on a steep, forested mountainside at a height of about 12,000 feet near Gatte village on the border of Siang and Shi-Yomi districts of Arunachal.

"We have recovered the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder... We will go into the detail (to ascertain) as to what happened and how do we make sure that it does not happen again," Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa told media after reviewing the Combined Graduation Parade at the Air Force Academy in Dundigal, near Hyderabad

This crash mirrored a similar disaster exactly 10 years ago, when another AN-32 transporter, also with 13 persons on board, dashed into a mountain on the same route. That incident occurred while the aircraft was returning from Mechuka to Jorhat.

Another AN-32 mishap which has deeply troubled the IAF was the one in 2016 when an aircraft disappeared over the Bay of Bengal while flying from Chennai to Port Blair with 23 persons on board. There's was no trace of the aircraft, and extensive search and rescue operations proved futile.

Meanwhile, 152 cadets were commissioned as officers in the IAF after an impressive Combined Graduation Parade reviewed by Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa.

The Air Chief stressed upon the immense trust and confidence that the service reposes in the newly commissioned officers and their capabilities. He also mentioned the pride he felt in reviewing the Parade and made a special mention of the award winners.