© AFP / Magazine image
The airline of the airline Air India Express had a serious accident in India on Friday night Finnish time. LEHTIKUvA / AFP
AFP
The airline of the airline Air India Express had a serious accident in India on Friday night Finnish time. The accident occurred at Kozhikode Airport in Kerala State, South India.
The plane coming from Dubai derailed during the landing and broke in half. It rained heavily on the ground at the time of landing.
By Friday evening, local police had confirmed sixteen people had died in the collision. According to Indian sources, one of the dead was a pilot of a plane.
According to local authorities, at least 89 people had been admitted to hospitals in the area, of which at least fifteen were seriously injured.
Dozens of ambulances fetched passengers to hospitals for hours, and the final number of injuries in the evening was not yet clear.
191 people on the plane
According to the first data, there were at least 185 people in the plane, but the exact number is apparently 191. The uncertainty was partly due to the fact that there were some babies in the plane who are not marked as passengers in the same way as adults.
The airline itself reported 174 passengers, 10 infants, two pilots and five cabin crew members on board.
The television images shot in the field showed how the machine had broken in half, but it did not appear to have caught fire. According to one television channel, there would have been problems with the machine’s landing gear.
According to Indian aviation authorities, the plane failed to stop and slipped over the runway. From there it fell into the lower valley, and split into two parts.
According to the BBC, this was a government-organized flight to repatriate Indians from Dubai due to existing travel restrictions.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences on Twitter.
– My thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones. I wish the injured a speedy recovery. Authorities will provide all possible assistance on the spot, Modi wrote.