The
death toll from an Indian passenger aircraft accident has risen to 18, while 16
people have been severely injured, a senior government official said on
Saturday.
The
Air India Express plane, which was repatriating Indians stranded in Dubai due
to the coronavirus pandemic, overshot the runway of the Calicut International
Airport in heavy rain near the southern city of Kozhikode on Friday. This was
India’s worst passenger aircraft accident since 2010.
The
flight was carrying 190 passengers and crew.
The
plane’s pilot and the co-pilot were killed in the accident, K Gopalakrishnan,
chief of the Malappuram district in the southern state of Kerala, told Reuters.
“All
passengers have been admitted to various hospitals, and they are also being
tested for Covid-19,” Gopalakrishnan said, adding autopsy of the bodies would
be carried out according to the Covid-19 protocol.
The
Boeing-737 the plane skidded off the table-top runway of Calicut, crashing
nose-first into the ground. Such runways are located at an altitude and have
steep drops at one or both ends.
In
2010, another Air India Express flight from Dubai overshot the table-top runway
at Mangalore, a city in the south, and slid down a hill, killing 158 people.
Civil
Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri last night told national broadcaster DD
News 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 runway.
India,
which shut down all air travel in late March to try to contain the novel
coronavirus, has restarted limited international air travel.
Air
India Express AXB1344 was a government-operated repatriation flight for Indians
previously unable to return home because of travel restrictions.
