Air India Express plane skids off runway, killing at least 16 and injuring more than 100

The Air India Express flight that skidded off a runway while landing at the airport in Kozhikode, Kerala state, India, Friday, Aug. 7, 2020. (AP)

A special evacuation flight bringing people home to India who had been trapped abroad because of the coronavirus skidded off a runway and split in two while landing Friday in heavy rain in the southern state of Kerala. The crash killed at least 16 passengers and injured 123 more, police said.

CBS News has confirmed both pilots, including Captain Deepak Vasant Sathe, were among those killed in the crash. Abdul Karim, a senior Kerala state police officer, said at least 15 of the injured were in critical condition, and that rescue operations were over.

Air India Express passenger jet crashes while landing (CBS News)

The NDTV news channel said the plane flew from Dubai to Kozhikode, also called Calicut, in Kerala, India’s southernmost state.

No fire was reported on the Boeing 737 aircraft after it landed and broke into two pieces, Rajiv Jain, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Ministry, said.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep S. Puri said in a statement that the flight “overshot the runway in rainy conditions and went down 35 feet (10.6 meters) into a slope before breaking up into two pieces.”

Video posted to social media showed the aftermath of the crash with fire hoses being sprayed on the aircraft.

@airindia accident. Pilot dead, co-pilot is in critical pic.twitter.com/pODuzqxkRs
— santhosh (@santhusarling) August 7, 2020

An inquiry will be conducted by the ministry’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, he said.

Dubai-based aviation consultant Mark Martin said that while it was too early to determine the cause of the crash, annual monsoon conditions appeared to be a factor.

“Low visibility, wet runway, low cloud base, all leading to very poor braking action is what looks like led to where we are at the moment with this crash,” Martin said, calling for the European Aviation Safety Agency and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to assist with the Indian government’s investigation.

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.

There were 174 adult passengers, 10 infants, two pilots and four cabin crew on board the aircraft, Jain said.

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.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “pained by the plane accident in Kozhikode,” and that he had spoken to Kerala’s top elected official.

The last major plane crash in India was in 2010 when an Air India Express plane from Dubai to Mangalore overshot the runway and burst into flames. The crash killed 158 people and left eight survivors.

Air India Express is a low-cost subsidiary of Air India that flies Boeing 737-800s.

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