#At least 16 dead after Air India plane skids off runway while landing

At least 16 people were killed and 123 injured Friday when an Air India Express airliner skidded off the runway and broke apart after landing in heavy rain in the southern city of Calicut, according to reports.

The flight from Dubai had 190 passengers — including 10 infants — and crew on board when it overshot the runway, the Civil Aviation Ministry said in a statement, according to Reuters.

State police official Abdul Karim said the dead included one of the pilots, adding that at least 15 of the injured were in critical condition.

The Boeing 737 fell into a valley and broke into two pieces at Kozhikode Calicut International Airport in the southern state of Kerala, officials said.

The plane had a problem with the landing gear, News 18 reported, citing unnamed sources, according to CNN. Flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 indicated that the plane circled the airport several times as it attempted to land.

Government official Amitabh Kant said the runway is on a hilltop with deep gorges on either side, making it difficult to land.

“The incident happened because of heavy rains and poor visibility. This is truly devastating,” he told NDTV.

Rajiv Jain, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Ministry, said no fire was reported on the plane after it landed.

The repatriation flight — officially known as a “Vande Bharat Mission” — was carrying 174 Indian citizens back to the country, officials said. Regular commercial flights have been halted in India amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “pained by the plane accident in Kozhikode.”

“My thoughts are with those who lost their loved ones. May the injured recover at the earliest,” he said.

Home Minister Amit Shah said in a tweet that he was “distressed to learn about the tragic accident of Air India Express aircraft at Kozhikode.”

An emergency services official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Agence France-Presse: “Rescue operations are on but the rains are making it difficult.”

Images from the scene showed emergency personnel working in the dark and spraying the wreckage with water.

Air India Express is a subsidiary of Air India.

The worst air disaster in India took place on Nov. 12, 1996, when a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight collided midair with a Kazakhastan Airlines plane near Charki Dadri in Haryana state, killing all 349 aboard the two planes.

With Post wires