An Indian Air Force (IAF) AN-32 plane with 29 on board is missing after it took off from Chennai this morning.

The plane took off from the Tambaram air base near Chennai a little after 8 am and was heading for Port Blair and was to have landed around 11.20 am.

Officials say the last contact with the plane, which has mostly service personnel on board, was around 15 minutes after take-off. The plane has an emergency beacon locator, which usually gets activated if the aircraft crashes.

A massive search operation has been launched by the air force, Navy and Coast Guard.

The Navy has launched surveillance aircraft to look for the missing plane in the Bay of Bengal. A Dornier aircraft has also been sent and four ships,  Karmukh, Gharial, Jyoti and Kuthar have been diverted to the region at full speed.

There are more than 100 AN-32s in service with the IAF. It is an aircraft that can fly for up to four hours without refueling.

(NDTV)