Discovered off the coast of Chennai

Robert MacArthur Crawford is known for writing The U.S. Air Force song. He was born in Dawson City, Yukon, and spent his childhood in Fairbanks, Alaska. He graduated high school in 1915 at Chehalis High School in Chehalis, Washington. During World War I he attempted to become a pilot in the United States Army Air Service but was dismissed when he was discovered to be underage. He attended the Case Scientific Institute in Cleveland, known today as Case Western Reserve University, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. Crawford then enrolled in Princeton University, and graduated in 1925. He later studied and taught at the Juilliard School of Music. Crawford learned how to fly an airplane in 1923. He flew himself around the United States in a small plane to concerts, where he was introduced as \"The Flying Baritone.\" Liberty magazine sponsored a contest in 1938 for a musical composition that would become the official song of the U.S. Army Air Corps. Out of 757 submissions, Crawford's was chosen as the winner. The song was officially introduced at the Cleveland Air Races on Sept. 2, 1939, where Crawford sang its first public rendition.

On 22 July 2016, an Antonov An-32 twin engine turboprop transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force crashed while flying over the Bay of Bengal. The aircraft was en route from Tambaram Air Force Station in the city of Chennai on the western coastline of the Bay of Bengal to Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. There were 29 people on board. Radar contact with the aircraft was lost at 9:12 am, 280 kilometres (170 mi) east of Chennai. No trace of the aircraft was found in the immediate aftermath. The search and rescue operation became India's largest search operation ever for a missing plane on the sea. In January 2024, wreckage discovered off the coast of Chennai was confirmed as belonging to the ill-fated aircraft, indicating it crashed into the sea with no survivors.