The Coast Guard Dornier aircraft which went missing last month may have disintegrated after it fell into the sea, a top official said today.

"The Dornier aircraft may have disintegrated after it fell into the sea," Coast Guard Inspector General, (Region East), Satya Prakash Sharma told PTI.

"The water pressure at that depth in the ocean, about 990 meters, is very high and the aircraft would have disintegrated after it fell into the sea," he said.

To another question, he said the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder would be handed over to the Board of Inquiry soon. "They (the board) will make it available to Hindustan Aeronautics authorities (in Bengaluru) for decoding," he said.

The Coast Guard constituted a board of inquiry recently to go into the issue. Headed by a deputy inspector general, a seasoned senior pilot, it has representatives from Hindustan Aeronauticals, which has the facility to decode the FDR and the manufacturer of the aircraft.

Meanwhile, in a press release, Coast Guard gave an inventory of the items belonging to the Dornier that had been recovered so far by Reliance vessel 'Olympic Canyon.'