Another Airliner crash

[Jim Goose]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...22/2906605.htm

An Air India Express passenger plane en route from Dubai has overshot a runway and crashed outside an airport in southern India, killing almost everyone on board in one of the country's worst air accidents in years.

Mangalore deputy police commissioner R Ramesh said the plane, a Boeing 737 believed to be carrying 160 passengers and six crew, crashed in Mangalore about 6:30am on Saturday (local time) after overshooting the runway and ploughing into a forest.

At least eight people have been rescued from the plane, despite initial fears that everyone on board was killed.

The injured have been taken to local hospitals, but rescue workers say the chance of finding anyone else alive is bleak.

"My hands, face and legs are all burnt," one survivor, Uner Farooq, told the NDTV channel from his hospital bed with his head wrapped in bandages.

"There was a lot of smoke and fire inside and there was no way to get out."

Abdullah, another survivor, told local channel TV9 from hospital the plane had broken into two.

"I jumped out of the plane after it crashed. I saw two other people also come out," he said.

"There was tyre-burst kind of noise. I tried to get out of the front but saw that there was a big fire. So I went back again and jumped out from there."

Karnataka home minister VS Acharya called for local people's cooperation in what he called "this hour of crisis" and urged them to stay away from the crash site.

"It is feared that most of the people have died," Mr Acharya said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has offered his condolences and says compensation will be paid to the families of the victims.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash, although Ramesh said the airport had been lashed by heavy rains, which had hampered rescue efforts.

Television footage suggested the plane had partially broken up, with smoke billowing from the main fuselage, as rescue workers sought to douse the fire with foam.

Rescue teams had to struggle down steep, wooded slopes to reach the plane, and were shown carrying body parts away from the site.

One television channel showed a fireman carrying in his arms what seemed to be the mangled remains of a child.

Charred bodies and an engine lay in the forested terrain, while hundreds of distressed relatives gathered at the airport and the crash site.

"The aircraft has broken up into pieces and fire has engulfed the aircraft. There is lot of smoke," senior police officer Gopal Hosur said.

"The flight had already landed. There was slight rain. The flight skidded off," eyewitness Mohiuddin Bava told CNN-IBN channel.

"After that it caught fire. Villagers, everyone there, came to rescue. The plane wings are right in front of me now."

Mangalore is a coastal city, about 320 kilometres west of Bangalore.

It is the worst plane crash in India since 61 people were killed when a passenger plane crashed into a residential area near the eastern city of Patna in 2000.

Air India Express is the budget arm of state-run carrier Air India.

- AFP/Reuters

The aircraft was VT-AXV delivered on 15th January 2008.