Daily News

Mangalore: An Air India Express airliner crashed outside Mangalore airport in Karnataka on Saturday, killing 158 people when it burst into flames after overshooting a table-top runway and plunging into forest below.

There were eight survivors after the Boeing 737-800, which had come from Dubai with 166 people on board including six crew members, appeared to skid off the runway in rain, Air India director Anup Srivastava said. At least 146 bodies had been recovered, said M. Nambiar, a top official in the Civil Aviation ministry. "We had no hope to survive, but we survived," Pradeep, a survivor who is an Indian technician working in Dubai, said. "The plane broke into two and we jumped off the plane. As soon as the plane landed, within seconds this happened." Local television showed a fireman carrying what seemed to be the remains of a child from the smoking wreckage. Charred bodies lay in the forested terrain. All the passengers were Indian nationals, an Air India official in Dubai said. Many were likely Indian migrant workers in Dubai. The pilot was Serbian and said to be very experienced.

Air India Express is the budget arm of the loss-ridden state-run carrier Air India, which has been fending off growing competition from private airlines.

The flight's black box has been recovered, the United Arab Emirates state news agency WAM said. But Air India official Nambiar said the search for the flight data recorder was still going on.

The crash appeared to be an accident, Indian officials said. One TV report said the plane hit a radar pole on landing.

"There was no distress indication from the pilot. That means between the pilot and the airport communication there was no indication of any problem," V.P. Agarwal, director of Airports Authority of India, told local television. Read more...