Five Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel were killed when their AN-32 transport aircraft crashed while landing at Assam’s Jorhat base around 10 am on Saturday.Six personnel were on board and two among those killed were officers. The co-pilot survived and is undergoing treatment at a military hospital in Jorhat, said IAF officials.The deceased have been identified as Squadron Leader Prashant Singh, Flight Lieutenant Shubham Kumar, Sergeant Jitendra Sharma, Agniveervayu Khemaram Kumawat and Agniveervayu Danish Alam.Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and the IAF condoled the deaths in separate messages on X. “A court of inquiry is being constituted to ascertain the cause of the accident,” the IAF said.Serious questions, meanwhile, have again risen over flying the AN-32 aircraft, which are over 35 years old even as their replacement is still a few years away. Sources said as soon as the aircraft took off from Jorhat on a routine sortie, its pilot reported a technical malfunction and decided to return to the base.Past AN-32 crashesJune 3, 2019: Plane disappears shortly after take-off from Jorhat for Arunachal; all 13 aboard killedJuly 2016: Plane with 29 disappears on way from Chennai to Port Blair; wreckage found in 2024; all deadJune 2009: An AN-32 crashes near Rinchi Hill in Arunachal; all 13 personnel on board killedMarch 1999: Crash near Delhi’s Palam airport; all 21 on board killed, casualties on ground tooHowever, while attempting to land, the aircraft skidded off the runway and crashed, resulting in a fire and the five deaths, the sources said.The AN-32 is the Air Force’s “workhorse” in the Himalayas and nearly 100 of these planes are still in use. It’s a twin-engine turboprop transport aircraft, which is widely used for tactical airlift, troop movement, cargo delivery and logistics support, particularly in remote and high-altitude areas. It possesses specialised high-thrust engines capable of operating in “hot and high” environment.India had bought 125 AN-32 aircraft and the first lot had started arriving in 1984. In 2009, a deal was finalised with Ukraine for the entire fleet’s upgrade, which included “total technical life extension, repowering engines; certain structural modifications to reduce weight, noise and vibration; installation of a glass cockpit with a new avionics suite and flight management system, satellite navigation system and anti-collision systems”. While Ukraine modified a few aircraft, the remaining were to be done by No. 1 Base Repair Depot, Kanpur.The IAF has also started executing its long-term strategy to replace the ageing AN-32 with Airbus C-295 aircraft and the deliveries have already commenced. Though the C-295 is to directly replace the legacy Avro HS-748 fleet, it is widely seen as the stepping stone for replacing the tactical transport roles traditionally fulfilled by the AN-32.The Air Force also has a Medium Transport Aircraft programme for replacing the AN-32 and it seeks a plane with a carrying capacity between 18 and 30 tonnes. The foreign partner for this is yet to be decided.