Navy plane crash: Co-pilot's body found

Panaji, March 27 (IANS) The body of the Lt. Abhinav Nagori, the co-pilot of the Dornier-228 maritime surveillance aircraft that crashed into the Arabian Sea near Goa, was recovered on Friday, an officer said.

Lt. Nagori's body was recovered from the fuselage of the aircraft, which was located on Thursday.

The officer said the body was taken to Goa.

On Thursday, the body of Lt. Kiran Shekhawat, the flight observer, was also found in the fuselage of the aircraft.

Commander Nikhil Kuldip Joshi, the pilot, was rescued by a passing boat from a fishermen's hamlet off Karwar and transferred to a naval fast interceptor craft.

The Dornier-228 with three crew on board went down in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Goa on Tuesday night. Its fuselage was located in the vicinity of its last known position by INS Makar, a naval hydrographic vessel, which detected a large metallic object using its side-scan sonar.

INS Matanga with divers was then sent to the area.

The Indian Navy operates 36 Dornier-228 aircraft for search and rescue, maritime surveillance and commuter duties. This was the first crash of a Dornier since it was inducted into the navy in the early 1990s.