17 die as homecoming plane overshoots runway in India
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At least 17 people were killed and 123 injured when a plane of a special return flight for Indians stranded abroad because of the coronavirus skidded off a hilltop runway and cracked in two while landing in heavy rain in the southern state of Kerala, police said on Friday.
Among the injured, at least 15 were in critical condition, said Abdul Karim, a senior Kerala state police officer, on Saturday.
The dead included both pilots of the Air India Express flight, the airline said in a statement, adding that the four cabin crew members were safe.
The 2-year-old Boeing 737-800 flew from Dubai to Kozhikode, also called Calicut, in Kerala, India鈥檚 southernmost state, the airline said. There were 174 adult passengers, 10 infants, two pilots and four cabin crew on board.
Kozhikode鈥檚 2,850-meter runway is on a flat hilltop with deep gorges on either side ending in a 34-meter drop.
Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep S. Puri said in a statement that the plane 鈥渙vershot the runway in rainy conditions on Friday and went down the slope, breaking into two pieces upon impact.鈥
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.
An inquiry will be conducted by the ministry鈥檚 Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.
The airport鈥檚 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 meters longer than Kozhikode airport鈥檚, according to Harro Ranter, chief executive of the Aviation Safety Network online database.
Dubai-based aviation consultant Mark Martin said that while it was too early to determine the cause of the crash, annual monsoon conditions appeared to be a factor.
鈥淟ow visibility, wet runway, low cloud base, all leading to very poor braking action is what looks like led to where we are at the moment with this crash,鈥 Martin said, calling for the European Aviation Safety Agency and the US Federal Aviation Administration to assist the Indian government鈥檚 investigation.
Kerala state Health Minister KK Shailaja on Saturday asked local residents who joined the rescue effort to go into quarantine as a precautionary measure. The survivors were being tested for the coronavirus, officials said.
The Air India Express flight was part of the Indian government鈥檚 special repatriation mission to bring Indian citizens back to the country, officials said. All of the passengers were returning from the Gulf region. Regular commercial flights back to India have been halted because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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