Kozhikode crash: Toll rises to 18
Black box recovered, 23 passengers are in critical condition AIE plane had landed 1 km beyond runway threshold in low visibility
The black box of the illfated Air India Express flight AXB1344 was recovered on Saturday even as the toll in the mishap rose to 18 with a passenger succumbing to injuries. As many as 23 passengers are in critical condition in various hospitals of Kozhikode, officials said.
There were 174 passengers, including 10 infants, two pilots and five crew members on board the aircraft at the time of the accident. The deceased include the pilot, Capt. D.V. Sathe, co-pilot Akhilesh Kumar, and four children — three girls and a oneyear old boy. Two girls were aged two and the other was five.
The Centre and state governments announced compensation of `10 lakh each for the families of those who died in the crash. “Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the ill-fated aircraft have been retrieved. AAIB (Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau) is conducting investigations,” Union civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri, who arrived in Kozhikode to take stock of the situation and implementation of the relief measures, tweeted.
An official of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said the DFDR and CVR, which jointly make up the “black box” in an aircraft, will be sent to Delhi for further investigation.
Mr Puri said the weather conditions on Friday evening were unfavourable because of heavy rain and the pilot seems to have tried to bring the aircraft to a halt on the runway but it skidded, leading to the tragic accident. The AIE flight from Dubai overshot the tabletop runway at the international airport in Kozhikode while landing in heavy rain, fell into a valley 35 feet below and broke into two parts on Friday night.
The AAI also said the pilot “attempted first landing on runway 28 but could not sight the runway and subsequently carried out a missed approach (known popularly as goaround) and requested for runway 10”, adding that at the time of the second attempt at landing, it was raining and the reported visibility was 2,000 metres. It is understood that the DGCA had earlier asked the Kozhikode authorities to carry out maintenance work at the airport. However, the works were not carried out effectively.