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The funeral of the 12 naval personnel who died in Tuesday's crash, who had each served the country for not less than 15 years, will take place on Thursday in Goa.
"All the bodies are charred and not in a condition to be taken to their native places," Naval Chief Admiral Madhavendra Singh explained.
Incidentally, some of the deceased personnel had joined the navy 25 years ago when the IL-38 aircraft were inducted into the navy.
The four pilots and three observers, holding the rank of lieutenant commander, had each put in 14 to 15 years of service.
Four of them hailed from Uttar Pradesh - Lt Com Keshlendra Singh Rathod from Fatehgarh, Lt Com Jaideep Datta from Meerut, sailor Vijay Kumar from Agra and sailor Anil K Yadav from Ghazipur.
Three were from Haryana - Lt Com S K Yadav from Mahendragarh, sailor I Prakash from Rewari and sailor Jaipal Singh from Jhajjar.
Lt Com Sanjiv Kumar Datta hailed from New Delhi while Lt Com Rajesh Saini was from Chandigarh.
Lt Com Nitish Nirmal was from Chandrapur in Maharashtra, Lt Com Ashok Chandrashekhar Karadi from Belgaum in Karnataka and sailor S George was from Kerala.
They were all based at INS Hansa, the naval base situated behind Dabolim airport in Vasco.
All of them were from the same squadron, of which the navy has five in Goa with 20 officers and 50 sailors each.
"They were all highly qualified and experienced. The loss is irreparable," Admiral Singh said.
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