The aircraft, operated by Air Force squadron 25, went missing while on a flight from Chandigarh to Leh. Weather was deteriorating as a weather disturbance from the Pakistan side was moving in fast and the higher reaches of the mountains in the flight path were getting covered up. Reportedly the captain decided to return to Chandigarh but the airplane failed to arrived. The wreckage was located on a mountainside and a glacier in August 2003, 200 km from Chandigarh. The airplane crashed near Chandrabhaga Peak 13, a 20,500 feet high mountain with wreckage being scattered along Dhaka Glacier at an elevation of 17,324 feet (5280 m). A search expedition in August 2005 found more bodies and wreckage buried under 9 meters of snow, dispersed around an area of 5 square kilometers. One more body was recovered during an Indian Army expedition in August 2013.