KOZHIKODE, India (Reuters) – The death toll from an Indian passenger plane crash has risen to 18, while 16 people have been seriously injured, a senior government official said Saturday.
The Air India Express plane, which repatriated Indians stranded in Dubai due to the coronavirus pandemic, overturned the runway of Calicut International Airport in heavy rain near the southern city of Kozhikode on Friday. It was India’s worst passenger plane crash since 2010.
The flight carried 190 passengers and crew.
The pilot of the plane and the co-pilot were killed in the accident, K Gopalakrishnan, boss of the Malappuram district in the southern state of Kerala, told Reuters.
All survivors were admitted to various hospitals and were also tested for COVID-19, Gopalakrishnan said, adding that autopsies of the dead would also be performed according to the COVID-19 protocol.
Some 149 patients remain in hospital after some were discharged on Saturday, Gopalakrishnan said.
Authorities have also asked local people who went out to help quarantine passengers on board the plane.
The Boeing 737 plane skidded off the runway of Calicut, and first with its nose in the ground. Such runways lie at a height and have steep drops at one or both ends.
In 2010, another Air India Express flight from Dubai overtook the top-flight runway at Mangalore, a city in the south, and slipped down a hill, killing 158 people.
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Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri visited the scene of the accident on Saturday.
“It (the plane) skidded off the runway when it tried to land in the middle of what were clearly intermittent weather conditions at the time,” Puri told a news conference, adding that it would be too early to speculate on the exact cause of the accident.
Puri said two separate teams had already reached Kozhikode from New Delhi to conduct an investigation into the accident.
He said authorities managed to rescue most of the passengers because the plane did not catch fire when they descended the ramp at the end of the runway.
The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been recovered from the site, a top official at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation told Reuters.
Puri previously provided a distribution of all those on board the aircraft, Puri said earlier that it included 10 children, 174 adult passengers, four cabin owners and two pilots.
“The pilot tried a lot to land us (safely) in the clear weather. It was cloudy and at 7-7.30pm (GMT 1330-1400), we crash-landed. It was difficult to land, he tried a lot, “said one passenger, who gave his name as Ashraf.
India, which stopped all flights at the end of March to try to contain the coronavirus, has restarted limited international air travel.
Air India Express AXB1344 was a government-operated repatriation aircraft for Indians who were previously unable to return due to travel restrictions.
Written by Mayank Bhardwaj; Edited by Himani Sarkar and Gareth Jones
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