Air India crash kills 17, injures many
NEW DELHI — An Indian jetliner trying to land during a torrential downpour in southern India on Friday night skidded off a slick runway, crashed into a wall, tumbled into a valley and split in half, killing at least 17 people and injuring scores.
The Air India Express Boeing 737 was a special repatriation flight carrying more than 180 passengers from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Kozhikode, a city along India’s southwestern coast in Kerala state. Many aboard were Indians who had been stranded in the Persian Gulf during the coronavirus pandemic and had been waiting for months to return home.
Indian media showed injured passengers lying on their backs in the hallways of a hospital, transported there by emergency workers in a drenching rain. According to news reports, as many as 120 people had been injured.
Flight radar suggested the plane may have circled the airport before trying to land. Survivors told local news media that the aircraft bounced up and down many times before landing.
The runway abuts the edge of a valley, where the plane ended up.
“The valley is about 50 feet deep, and it’s no surprise that the plane, after skidding, broke in two,” said Shashi Tharoor, a prominent member of Parliament from Kerala.
Every year, a large number of flights to Saudi Arabia for the hajj pilgrimage use the Kozhikode airport, which supports a considerable number of international flights, particularly to the Gulf countries. This year, though, Saudi
Arabia has strictly limited attendance to the hajj because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The airport has more international flights than domestic. It has a long runway,” Mr. Tharoor said.
In 2010, a similar but much more tragic accident happened at another hilltop airport just 150 miles up Kerala’s coast, in Mangalore. An Air India Express flight from Dubai carrying 166 people skidded off the runway, tumbled into a valley and burst into flames. The plane in that crash was also a Boeing 737, and 158 people died.
Air India Express said in a bulletin posted on its Twitter account that 17 people were killed, including the two pilots. The captain of the flight was described by Indian news media as a decorated former military officer who had served as a test pilot for the Indian Air Force.
All week in Kerala, the monsoon rains have been pouring down. At least 15 people were killed by a landslide in the state earlier Friday.
“There is no doubt that extreme weather conditions contributed to this,” Mr. Tharoor said in a televised interview.
Aviation experts said it was hard to slow a plane on a wet and slick runway. According to a statement by Air India Express, the plane “overshot” the runway, which was on a flat hilltop, with deep gorges on either side.
Indian media showed images of the jetliner’s fuselage cracked in half, but there appeared to be no fire. The plane’s nose had been badly smashed, and wet chunks of debris lay scattered over a grassy field.
Air India Express said there were 184 passengers, including 10 infants, aboard, along with four cabin crew members and two pilots.
The plane skidded off the runway around 7:40 p.m. Huge crowds surrounded the wreckage as injured passengers were pulled out, their eyes dazed, their faces wet. The rain continued to pelt down.
“Considering the severity of the accident, the loss of life was limited,” M.B. Rajesh, a former member of Parliament from Kerala, told the NDTV news channel. “That is a relief.”
He said all passengers had been evacuated by 9:15 p.m.