Five Came Home in Coffins. One Didn’t.

IAF AN-32 Crashes at Jorhat — June 13, 2026

Saturday morning at the Rowriah Air Force Station in Jorhat, Assam, an IAF AN-32 transport aircraft went down while landing. By the time the smoke started rising over the base, five men were gone.

The co-pilot made it. He’s in hospital right now, getting treated. The other five didn’t get that chance.

The IAF named them: Squadron Leader Prashant Singh, Flight Lieutenant Shubham Kumar, Sergeant Jitendra Sharma, Agniveervayu Khemaram Kumawat, and Agniveervayu Danish Alam. Two of them were Agniveers — young men who’d joined under the relatively new short-service defence scheme, barely into their careers.

There’s something about a name in a press statement that hits differently than a number. These weren’t five casualties in a tragedy report. They were a Squadron Leader. A Flight Lieutenant. A Sergeant. Two Agniveers. People with rank and routine and families waiting at home.

Immediately after the crash, firefighting teams rushed to the site as thick plumes of smoke rose from the wreckage. Emergency personnel worked fast. But the AN-32 had already done what it does when things go wrong at low altitude — it doesn’t give you much time.

The IAF ordered a Court of Inquiry to find out what happened. That’s the standard protocol. Investigate, document, and close the file. What it won’t do is answer the harder question — why does this aircraft keep showing up in these stories?

The AN-32 has been India’s workhorse for decades. It’s also been a recurring headline.

The IAF operates around 100 Antonov AN-32 tactical transport aircraft, down from the original 125 procured from the Soviet Union in the 1980s. This plane has been flying since before most of the men who died today were born. It was built to handle India’s toughest terrain — the Himalayas, remote strips in the Northeast, and high-altitude airfields near the China border. And to be fair, it has. Reliably, for decades.

But the age is showing. The Ministry of Defence is considering replacing the ageing AN-32 and IL-76 aircraft with a Medium Transport Aircraft programme to meet future strategic, tactical and operational airlift requirements. “Considering.” That word has been sitting in defence documents for years now.

In 2019, another AN-32 left Jorhat — the same base — and simply vanished. The wreckage was found eight days later near Pari hills in Arunachal Pradesh. All 13 personnel on board lost their lives. Today’s crash makes Jorhat the site of two AN-32 disasters in under a decade.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh expressed deep anguish over the loss, saying “their courage and service to the nation will always be remembered with pride and gratitude” and that the nation stands firmly with the bereaved families.

That’s the right thing to say. It’s also the thing that gets said every single time.

The Court of Inquiry will do its work. A cause will be identified — mechanical failure, weather, human error, or some combination. A report will be filed. And somewhere, five families will spend the rest of their lives trying to make sense of an ordinary Saturday morning that stopped being ordinary.

Khemaram Kumawat and Danish Alam — the two Agniveers — had enlisted with four-year contracts and dreams of serving. They served. Not for four years. Just until today.

The AN-32 needs to be replaced. Not in a policy document — on a runway. The question isn’t whether India can afford to upgrade its transport fleet. It’s whether India can afford not to.