At least 17 other people were killed and dozens injured when an Air India Express passenger plane repatriated Indians stranded by the COVID-19 pandemic flew over the airstrip amid heavy rains near the southern town of Kozde, authorities said. Flight Boeing-737 from Dubai to Calicut airport with 190 passengers and crew, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statement. Among them were 10 babies.
Television photographs show rescuers moving around the wreckage in torrential rain. The plane split into at least two pieces after the plane’s fuselage separated as it fell into a valley 30 feet below, the government said.
“Unfortunately, 16 other people lost their lives. I offer my condolences to their families and pray for the early recovery of the wounded,” Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said in a tweet.
Friday’s crash was the worst passenger plane crash in the country since 2010, when an Air India Express flight, also from Dubai, stayed past the runway and rushed downhill as it landed in the southern Indian city of Mangalore, killing 158 people.
Mangalore and Calicut have table tracks that are at an altitude and have steep slopes at one or at the ends of the track.
Media reported that the aircraft had slipped from the runway at Calicut International Airport, crashing its nose first to the ground. Calicut is located in the southern state of Kerala, where many Indians who run in the Middle East live.
Puri said the rescue operations were over and all passengers had been evicted from the plane. Police said earlier that four other people were trapped in the wreckage.
The Civil Aviation Ministry said in a statement that there was no chimney on board.
India, which shut down in late March in an attempt to involve the new coronavirus, has restarted the limited foreign air.
Air India Express AXB1344 was a government-led repatriation flight for Indians who in the past could not return home due to restrictions.
Television photographs showed the nose of the beaten plane opposite a brick wall, with much of the center of the aircraft pulverized.
Local television stations showed passengers, some liars motionless on stretchers, taken to a hospital surrounded by physical conditioning staff dressed in masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Saddened by the plane crash in Kozhikode,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted. “My mind is with those who have lost those who enjoyed it. Let’s leave the wounded as soon as possible,” he said.