At Least 14 Dead, 123 Injured as Air India Flight with 191 Onboard Crash-lands on Runway in Kerala

Matilda Omonaiye/

At least 14 people are dead – including both pilots – after an Air India Express plane flying from Dubai to Calicut with 191 passengers onboard skidded on runway and crashed into a valley.

The two pilots tried to land in heavy rain after already aborting their first attempt and circling over the airport at its destination for 20 minutes.

The plane overshot the runway and skidded into a 30ft-deep valley at Calicut airport, in the Indian State of Kerala, at around 7.45pm (2.45pm GMT) today.

Images circulating on social media show an aircraft ruptured into two parts laying in a valley.

Four passengers are thought to be trapped in the wreckage.

According to police reports, both pilots and 12 other individuals were killed in the disaster. Another 123 people were injured in the crash.

“I can confirm at least 14 deaths overall. Another 15 passengers have critical injuries. It is still a developing situation,” senior local policeman Abdul Karim told AFP.

“We have at least 89 people, many of them with serious injuries, admitted at different Kozhikode hospitals. The ambulances are still coming in,” said Sujith Das, another senior police official.

“We have been told that all those who have survived the crash also have some form of injuries.”

The NDTV news channel said 30-40 people were hospitalised and that other passengers had been evacuated from the aircraft.

Amitabh Kant, who heads the government’s planning commission, said the runway is on a hilltop with deep gorges on either side, making it difficult to land.

“The incident happened because of heavy rains and poor visibility. This is truly devastating,” he told NDTV.

Indian Home Minister Amit Shah said in a tweet that he was “distressed to learn about the tragic accident of Air India Express aircraft at Kozhikode.”

It was a repatriation flight carrying Indian citizens back to the country, officials said.

Regular commercial flights have been halted in India because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Air India Express said in a statement that there was “no fire reported at the time of landing.”

It said there were 174 passengers, 10 infants, two pilots and five cabin crew on board the aircraft.

One post claimed the plane was circling over the runway for 20 minutes before it made to land.

Reports suggested the plane “skidded” off the runway after trying to land in heavy rain.

Television pictures showed part of the fuselage of the Air India Express jet ripped apart, although there was no sign of any fire, at Kozhikode airport in the southern state of Kerala.

One television channel reported there had been a problem with the jet’s landing gear.

An emergency services official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP: “Rescue operations are on but the rains are making it difficult.”

Television pictures showed emergency services personnel working in the dark and spraying the wreckage with water.

Kerala has been battered by heavy rains in recent days. Monsoon season, which lasts from June to September, wreaks havoc across South Asia every year.

The last fatal plane crash in India was in 2010, when an Air India Express Boeing Co. plane overshot the runway and burst into flames, killing 158 people.

That was the first fatal crash of a passenger aircraft in India in a decade.

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