What do we know about the Air India plane crash?
Flight IX 1134 was carrying 184 passengers, including 10 infants, and six crew when it attempted to land at the airport in Kozhikode, formerly known as Calicut.
The Boeing 737 aircraft crashed at 19:40 local time (14:10 GMT) on Friday. Indian media said the pilots could not see the runway during a first attempt at landing due to heavy rain.
When they did touch down, the plane is said to have landed 1,000 metres beyond the threshold of the runway before skidding off and sliding into a ditch.
The impact broke the plane in two. Images from the scene showed the fuselage shredded, with the blue seats from the jet scattered along the ground.
Kozhikode has a table-top airport, a challenge for air crew during difficult landings as they typically have steep drops at one or both ends of the runway.
Both the pilots were among the dead. Nearly 150 people are being treated in hospital.
“The aircraft fell 35 feet [10 metres] down and rescue people were able to reach there immediately, cut the body of the plane and retrieve people trapped inside.”
What’s the latest on the investigation?
India’s Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri visited the scene of the crash on Saturday, where he announced the recovery of the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, which could prove crucial to investigating the crash.
He praised the lead pilot and said it was too early to say what the precise cause of the accident was. We have to be grateful that the casualties are only this much,” he said. An unnamed official told stated: “Fuel had leaked out so it was a miracle that the plane did not catch fire, the toll could have been much higher,” one senior emergency official at the scene said.”
Credits: BBC
Image Credits: Daily Sun
