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Air India Flight Crash: Death Toll Rises To 18, Three Passengers Still Critical

Centre announces Rs 10 lakh relief for deceased, State follows suit
ARUNCHANDRA BOSE via Getty Images

Kozhikode, Kerala ,Aug 8 (PTI) The death toll in the Air India Express flight crash at the airport here, rose to 18 on Saturday with one more passenger succumbing to injuries.

Malappuram District Collector K Gopalakrishnan told reporters here that one more passenger had succumbed to injuries.

Except one, all those who had perished in the accident have been identified, he said.

Seventeen people were killed and scores injured when the AIE flight from Dubai with 190 on board overshot the table top runway while landing in heavy rains and fell into a valley 35 feet below and broke into two portions on Friday night.

The pilot-in-command Captain Deepak Sathe and his co- pilot Akhilesh Kumar were among those who lost their lives. Three people are still critical.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said: “There were 190 people on board the aircraft. Out of them, 18 lost their lives. Around 149 people were admitted to hospitals out of which 23 have been discharged. A few patients are in critical condition, three of them are on ventilators. We visited the site of crash and two black boxes have been recovered.The precise cause of the mishap will be determined when we analyse the data in those black boxes.“

Union Minister V Muraleedharan reached the city from Delhi.

Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan are also expected to reach the airport by around 9 AM.

An Air India Express statement on Saturday said Chairman and Managing Director of Air India, Chief Officer of the Air India Express, Chief of Operations and Chief of Flight Safety of AIX have already reached the airport here.

Special relief flights have been arranged from Delhi and one from Mumbai for rendering humanitarian assistance to all the passengers and their family members, the statement said.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), meanwhile, directed its personnel to go into quarantine as a precautionary measure after at least two passengers of the flight tested positive for COVID-19.

The black box of the plane has been recovered and will be taken to Delhi for further investigation by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau

The Emergency Response Director is coordinating with all the agencies in Kozhikode, Mumbai and Delhi for effective emergency response.

The AAIB (Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau) , DGCA and Flight Safety department have reached the city to investigate the accident, the statement said.

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