Air India plane mishap death toll rises to 18, bigger tragedy averted
New Delhi: The death toll in last Friday evening’s plane crash in south India has risen to 18, including the two pilots, as two investigating teams have reached the site to find out the exact reason of the mishap.
Confirming the number of deaths, the country’s Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday tweeted, “18 people, including two pilots, have lost their lives, it is unfortunate. 127 people are at hospitals, others have been released.” The mishap took place at 19:41pm local time when the Air India plane, a Boeing-737, flying from Dubai skidded off the runway at Kozhikode Airport during monsoon weather.
According to Puri, as per the flight manifest there were 190 people on flight AXB-1344, including 174 adult passengers, 10 infants, four cabin crew and two pilots.
Immediately after skidding off the runway, the plane broke into three parts. Fortunately, the plane did not catch fire with reports the pilots quickly shut down the engines as the plane skidded.
Though officially the cause of the accident has not been announced yet, media reports said that the pilots tried to land the aircraft amid heavy rains and it skidded off the wet runway. The plane’s fuselage broke into three parts, with the cockpit falling in a 35-feet deep ditch hitting against one of the walls of the airport.
The Kozhikode Airport is said to be a “tabletop airport” having a deep valley at the end of the runway. The plane was carrying people stranded overseas amid the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, under the “Vande Bharat Mission” - a special mission initiated by the Indian government.