Air India plane splits in two after skidding off runway, killing 18
- Aircraft carrying 190 passengers and crew from Dubai overshot runway as it landed in Calicut
- Plane was bringing home Indians stranded overseas due to coronavirus pandemic
The death toll has risen to 18 with more than 100 injured after an Air India Express passenger plane overshot the runway and broke into two after landing in the southern city of Calicut in heavy rain on Friday, officials said.
The Boeing 737 flight from Dubai was flying home Indians stranded overseas due to the coronavirus pandemic. There were 190 passengers and crew on board, the civil aviation ministry said in a statement. Among them were 10 infants. Both the pilot and co-pilot were killed.
Television footage showed rescuers moving around the wreckage in pouring rain. The aircraft lay split into at least two chunks after the plane’s fuselage sheared apart as it fell into a valley 35 feet (10.7 metres) below, authorities said.
“Because of the weather conditions, he could not land the first time, so he did a turnaround and tried to approach it from a different direction,” Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told national broadcaster DD News, adding that only an investigation would reveal the cause of the crash.
Puri said authorities managed to rescue most of the passengers because the plane did not catch fire while descending the slope at the end of the table-top runway. Such runways are located at an altitude and have steep drops at one or both ends.