Navy ready to salvage Lionair wreckage

by Manjula FERNANDO

The Sri Lanka Navy yesterday said it was ready to salvage the underwater wreckage of the Lionair flight that was found near the Iranathivu island, north of Mannar, in a search operation last week.

The Navy Spokesman Comm. Kosala Warnakulasuriya said if a request is made by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) officials investigating the plane crash, they had the capacity and expertise to raise the plane wreckage.

“We have not received a request so far but we are ready if such a request comes forth,” he said responding to an inquiry by the Sunday Observer.

Asked as to why it took so long to find the wreckage of the Antonov, he said the area where the debris of the plane was found, was a highly fortified LTTE sea stretch during the height of terrorism. The recent search for the missing plane was done following a request by the TID.

He said the Lionair 602 wreckage was found in shallow waters but salvaging it would not be an easy task.

The Lionair 602 Antonov which took off with 48 passengers, six crew members and two Ukranian pilots, from the Palali airbase to Ratmalana, on September 29, 1998, went missing from the radar screen after 10 minutes.

Until April this year, when the TID officers apprehended an LTTE suspect who confessed to shooting down the airplane with a shoulder held missile, the disappearance of the plane remained a mystery.

Shiwasubramaniam Thillaraj of the LTTE confessed that an LTTE leader had ordered the shooting down, even though they were aware that it was carrying Tamil civilian passengers to Colombo.