Sat 08 August 2020:
NEW DELHI – At least 18 people are dead, including two pilots, after an Air India Express plane skidded off a runway while landing in southern India, K Gopalakrishnan, a top administrative officer told media.
“Emergency Response team members as well as Special Assistance Team members (Angels of Air India) have been pressed into service from Cochin, Mumbai and Delhi to render all possible assistance to the passengers as well as to the family members,” it said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted he was “pained by the plane accident”.
Kozhikode’s 2,850-metre (9,350-foot) runway is on a flat hilltop with deep gorges on either side ending in a 34-metre (112-foot) drop.
The plane’s fuselage split into two as it fell into a valley 30 feet below, authorities said.
“The incident happened because of heavy rains and poor visibility. This is truly devastating,” Amitabh Kant, who heads the government’s planning commission, told NDTV news channel.
Local TV news channels showed passengers, some of them lying motionless on stretchers, brought into a hospital surrounded by health workers wearing masks because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
TV visuals showed the aircraft’s nose smashed into a brick wall, with much of the middle of the plane pulverised.
“A special relief flight has been arranged from Mumbai and Delhi for rendering humanitarian assistance to all the passengers and the family members,” it said, adding that a passenger information center is available for family or friends of those who may have been on board flight IX-1344.
The plane with 190 people onboard skidded off the runway at the Kozhikode International Airport Kerala late Friday amid rainfall.
Local authorities said the number of injured is more than 100 and are being treated at different hospitals.
A total of 174 passengers, 10 infants, 2 pilots, and four cabin crews were on the aircraft. After the crash, the plane broke into two pieces and a massive rescue operation was launched, which finished around midnight.
A similar tragedy was narrowly avoided at the same airport a year ago, when an Air India Express flight suffered a tail strike upon landing. None of the 180 passengers of that flight was injured.
The airport’s runway end safety area was expanded in 2018 to accommodate wide-body aircraft.
The runway end safety area meets United Nations international civil aviation requirements, but the UN agency recommends a buffer that is 150 metres (492 feet) longer than what exists at Kozhikode airport, according to Harro Ranter, chief executive of the Aviation Safety Network online database.
Air India Express is a subsidiary of Air India.
The civil aviation ministry said a formal enquiry will be conducted into the accident.
