An Air India Express repatriation flight from Dubai skidded off the runway during the landing process at Calicut International Airport on Friday at 7.40 pm.
Initial reports reaching here said that the aircraft overshot the runway and fell 35 ft into a deep gorge where its body split into two. According to eyewitnesses, fire and smoke arose from the remains. The casualties are not immediately known. The aircraft was trying to land amidst rain when the accident occurred.
There were 191 people on board along with four cabin crew and two pilots.
The incident occurred almost 10 years after an AI Express flight crashed at the Mangluru airport in May 2010. Over 150 passengers were killed in that crash.
A Directorate General of Civil Aviation statement said that the visibility was 2,000 metre and due to heavy rain after landing on runway 10, the flight continued to run to the end of runway and fell down in the valley and broke into two pieces.
There were also unconfirmed reports that two people were killed in the accident and several injured. Rescue operations are on and passengers are being taken to hospital for medical care.
"Spoke to Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan about the situation," says PM Narendra Modi on the plane accident in Kozhikode.
Table-top runway
A Court of Inquiry under the Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation law of 2017 will be set up to establish what exactly caused the accident.
The runway at the Kozhikode airport is a table-top model which is located at the top of a small hill with one or both ends leading to a steep rock phase. After the Mangalore airport crash in 2010, an expert team had cautioned that table-top runways required extra skill for pilots to carry out flight operations.