Agartala: Fragments of a US military aircraft, used during the Second World War, have been recovered in northern Tripura 66 years after it crashed, defence sources said here yesterday.
"After more than 66 years of being considered unrecoverable by many, the remnants of an American aircraft, C-47B, which crashed during [the Second World War], were recovered by a team of 34th Battalion of the Assam Rifles last week in northern Tripura," an army official said.
The remains of the aircraft were found at the remote tribal village of Birmani Para in the Dhalai district in northern Tripura, 125km north of Agartala.
The official said: "A series of search operations had been launched since September last year to find out the crash site in the thick and dense forests of all three hill ridges of northern Tripura — Baramura, Atharamura and Longtrai. Finally, our troopers achieved success last week."
The army official said that during the Second World War (1939-1945), the Allied forces lost hundreds of aircraft in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theatre of operations.
Causes
"The majority of Allied crashes were caused by inhospitable weather, mechanical failure or navigational errors. The American Joint Prisoners of War and Missing in Action Accounting Command (JPAC) had identified 16 known crash sites in northeast India where Allied forces aircraft had crashed during the [Second World War]," the official said.
"On May 17, 1946, the ill-fated C-47B aircraft crashed in Tripura along with 11 members, due to heavy storm conditions while transporting the remains of Allied POW [Prisoners of War] from Yangon [erstwhile capital of Burma, now Myanmar] to Calcutta," the official added.
