Bangla2000 | International News - Crash kills 60 passengers and flat residents


Indian policemen take shelter under the tailwing of a crashed Boeing 737 near Patna, India Monday July 17, 2000. Alliance Air flight CD7412, carrying 58 people, crashed on a house southwest of the Patna airport. As many as six people aboard the aircraft were said to have survived. (AP Photo/Ajit Kumar)

PATNA, India (AP) - Nearly 60 people died Monday when an Alliance Air plane crashed onto houses during a second landing attempt at Patna airport in eastern India, the Civil Aviation Ministry said.

Thirty-nine bodies, most of them burned beyond recognition, were pulled from the pile of metal wreckage about 3{ hours after the Boeing 737-200 crashed into two brick houses in a government employees' complex southwest of the airport near the capital of Bihar, India's poorest state.

Five people out of seven in one of the houses were killed, witnesses said. Up to eight people on the ground may have died, officials said.

Four of the survivors were pulled from the smashed brick houses in Gardanibagh government colony where the 20-year-old plane crashed, said an official at Patna Medical College Hospital, who did not give his name.

At least seven people survived of the 58 aboard the plane, said S.P. Modi, director of the airport authority at Patna.

"Miracles do take place in this world. I thank God for it," said Bharat Rungta, a passengers who told Press Trust of India he was jolted out of sleep when the plane crashed. "I managed to jump out of the plane," he said from his hospital bed.

State-owned Indian Airlines, the parent company of Alliance Air, and A.H. Jung, secretary of the Civil Aviation Ministry, said the plane carried 58 people, including six crew, were aboard the two-engine plane when it left Calcutta at 6:50 a.m. (0120gmt).

The pilot, Capt. Sohan Pal, 35, may have been flying too low as he made his second approach to Patna, Jung told reporters in New Delhi. "He had lost height or partially misjudged it, according to our regulations," said Jung.

"There was nothing wrong with the plane's systems. The pilot reported no problems during the flight. The flight was perfect," Jung said. He denied the reports of witnesses that there was a fire before the crashed.

However, several witnesses on the ground, and one surviving passenger reported smoke or flames before the crash.

"I was sitting by the window in the front section of the aircraft, which started shaking dangerously when we were preparing to land after smoke was sighted," said Rohit Ranjan Sinha, an executive with Allergen India Surgicals Ltd. of Calcutta, who survived with burn injuries.

One witness on the ground, Ashok Kesri, told The Associated Press in Patna, "The plane was on fire before it hit the house."

"I saw the aircraft wrapped in smoke, wobbling in the sky at a low altitude for a few seconds before its left wing was torn off after grazing a neem tree," the United News of India quoted witness Ullas Mandal as saying.

Jung said there was ideal visibility, but a little haze, when the plane approached Patna at 4,000 meters and crashed at 7:30 a.m. (0200 gmt). The pilot asked to go around again, which is not unusual, Jung said. When he came in for a second landing, the plane crashed two kilometers (1.2 miles) southwest of the airport, hitting two houses, Jung said.

He said the plane was in "perfect condition" and had received all its normal checks. Capt. Pal had 4,300 flying hours, Jung said.

The plane was delivered in June 1980 and had recorded 42,000 flight hours, Boeing spokesman Gary Lesser in Seattle-Washington, told The Associated Press. He said no decision had been made on whether Boeing would send an investigative team to the scene, and it was too soon for the airline or regulatory agency to make such a request.

Relatives, police and airport workers mobbed the smoldering pile of metal wreckage, screaming and crying as they tried to find survivors. They used shovels, their bare hands and sharp-edged homemade implements to pull people from the damaged houses and made makeshift hose extensions to pour water onto the flaming airplane.

Thousands of people swarmed around the plane, whose tailfins could be seen above their heads resting against a brick house, whose ceiling and wall were smashed in. Another house next door had bricks missing from the front. Witnesses said five of the seven people in the house were killed when the plane crashed into it.

The plane was en route to New Delhi, with scheduled stops at Patna, and Lucknow, where six passengers were to have landed. The majority had booked their flights to Patna, said airline officials in Calcutta. They said the plane carried no foreigners.

India has a poor record of air safety because of outdated equipment at most of its airports. The international airports at New Delhi, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta started using the sophisticated air traffic control systems by U.S. manufacturer Raytheon in 1999.

That was more than two years after a midair collision between a Saudi airliner and a Kazakh cargo plane over New Delhi killed 349 people in India's worst air crash.

India has a poor record of air safety. Here is a chronology of major air accidents before Monday's crash of a Boeing 737-200 with at least 56 people aboard near Patna airport in eastern Bihar state.

November 12, 1996: 349 people die in a midair collision between a Saudi airliner and a Kazakh cargo plane near New Delhi.

April 26, 1993: 56 people killed in an Indian Airlines Boeing 737 crash at Aurangabad in western Maharashtra state.

Aug.16,1991: 69 people killed in an Indian Airlines Boeing 737 crash in northeastern Manipur state.

March 25, 1991: 25 people killed in an Indian Air Force Avro-HS 748 aircraft crash near Yelahanka station in southern Andhra Pradesh state.

Feb.14, 1990: 92 people killed in an Airbus-320 accident at Bangalore airport in southern India.

Oct.19, 1988: 131 people killed in an Indian Airlines Boeing-737 crash near Ahmedabad.

Oct. 19, 1988: 35 people killed in a Fokker Friendship plane crash near Gauhati in northeastern Assam state.

Aug. 4, 1978: 45 people killed in an Avro-748 plane crash near Pune in western Maharashtra state.

Jan.1, 1978: 213 people killed in an Air India 747 crash after taking off from Bombay.

February 7, 1966: 37 people killed in a Fokker Friendship crash near Banihal Pass in Jammu-Kashmir state.