Staff Reporter
SEPPA, 22 Jun: Residents of Hamba Pinda village in Pakoti circle of East Kameng district recovered a radiosonde after it crashed down on the hills of the village on Wednesday.
A radiosonde is a small instrument package that is suspended below a balloon filled with either hydrogen or helium. As the radiosonde is carried aloft, it measures pressure, temperature, and relative humidity.
It is learnt that after three days of rigorous search, five villagers – Tasap Pizi, Palo Sangdo, Raya Sangdo, Tani Sangdo and Hago Sangdo – located the radiosonde along with the deflated balloon from their forest area.
The villagers immediately informed the district police, who were monitoring the search operation.
Sources in district headquarters Seppa said that information about the radiosonde crashing in the Hamba Pinda village area was received from the district police after the military intelligence wing had alerted the police about an unknown flying object crashing in the area.
Members of the district police and the military intelligence wing visited Hamba Pinda on Thursday to locate the object. It was first suspected to be a spyballoon which might have been a potential national security breach. However, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has confirmed that the radiosonde was released by it on 18 June from its Jalpaiguri (Assam) station to collect upper-level weather information.
An IMD official told The Arunachal Times that the radiosonde had been launched from the Mohanbari weather station.
“It was launched from India Meteorological Department (weather department) station. It was launched from Jalpaiguri station. The purpose of this radiosonde is to collect the upper-level weather information,” he said.
“A radiosonde measures meteorological factors(temperature, relative humidity, pressure, wind direction, and wind speed) from the surface to 35 kms up in the atmosphere. Upper-air observation is needed to forecast weather and detect climate change,” he added.
