Nightmare in the morning as 51 die in Patna plane crash

Nightmare in the morning as 51 die in Patna plane crash
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

PATNA, JULY 17: Minutes before it was scheduled to touch down at Patna's Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan airport this morning, an Alliance Air flight from Calcutta crashed into a row of government flats, killing 51 passengers. Seven, however, miraculously escaped the rendezvous with death, including a passenger who was asleep when the crash occurred.

On the ground, five local residents were killed as flight CD 7412 nosedived, hitting a tree and then landing atop a residential building in Gardanibagh, barely two km from the airstrip.

The Boeing 737 Calcutta-Patna-Lucknow-Delhi flight perished just before the scheduled arrival at 7.40 am. Most bodies were charred beyond recognition. The six crew members, including pilot Captain Sohan Pal and co-pilot A S Bagga, were killed.

The seven survivors, including a woman, Prachi Rajgharhia, were sent to the Patna Medical College Hospital and were on their way to AIIMS in the capital later tonight.

Five members of the family of a state government employee, Amarendra Mishra, died as the debris fell on his house.

An air traffic control (ATC) official, who did not want to be quoted, said that when the flight approached for landing at the Patna air strip, the pilot noticed that he was flying at a higher altitude than what was required for making a safe landing. He contacted the ATC who confirmed his fears. Captain Pal sought permission from the ATC to make a 360-degree turnaround so that he could descend to the required elevation. The permission was granted. ``However, as the plane was negotiating the 360-degree turn, it lost control and first hit a tree before colliding on to a house and catching fire,'' he said.

``It was like a fireball,'' recalled Diwakar Kashyap, a resident who attempted to extricate some bodies from the crash site but failed to do so due to the engulfing flames. ``I saw the plane wavering in mid-air before crashing,'' said Bihar Chief Secretary V.S. Dubey who stays near the airport.

Bharat Rungta of ICICI, one of the seven survivors, said: ``I was seated in the fifth row from behind. I was sleeping so I don't really know whether the captain pressed the panic button before the crash. When I woke up, I found myself lying on the ground. The blanket with which I had covered myself was not with me. I had probably fainted. My colleague from ICICI, Ajay Kapoor, was writhing in pain. I pulled him out of the debris to a certain extent. After some distance, I could not as I had a shooting pain in the rib cage. I started walking on the road until I found some people who were very helpful. Initially, they were reluctant. Later on, I was picked up by an Indian Airlines bus. Kapoor and I boarded the bus together but split in the hospital.'' Kapoor died in the hospital.

On being told that his organisation had arranged for a special flight to fly him to Chennai so that he could be with his parents, Rungta said: ``Now I will rethink before boarding a flight. ''

Another survivor, P M M Bopanna, working with the NTPC, told The Indian Express: ``All of a sudden, the flight began swerving to the left. I became unconscious and do not remember how I reached here.''

Rohit Ranjan Sinha, a business executive with Allergen India Surgicals Ltd of Calcutta, who survived with burn injuries, said: ``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... I regained consciousness in the hospital.'' The remaining survivors had received serious burn injuries and were shell-shocked.

Sinha along with other survivors -- the Rajgharhia family of Dr Pramod, Prachi and Keta Rajgharhia -- were admitted to private nursing homes for treatment of burn injuries.

Amarendra Mishra, whosehouse was badly damaged in the crash, said at the PMCH that he was trapped inside the toilet for over an hour before being rescued by the locals. ``Three of my family members are dead and two are undergoing treatment here,'' he said.

Rescue work started late as the fire tenders arrived at least 45 minutes after the accident. ``One fire tender did not even have water,'' recalled an eyewitness.

Hundreds of residents surrounded the debris of the aircraft. Locals dug with shovels, sharp-edged home implements and even bare hands through the rubble of the two houses badly damaged by the crash to extricate those trapped inside.

``We pulled out five people from the rubble,'' Sushant Rai, a resident of the colony, said adding they were alive at that time.

As smoke billowed at the crash site, there was utter confusion initially with people swarming all over the place. Locals carrying buckets of water lent a helping hand to douse the fire which took over an hour to be extinguished.

Local residents even gave vent to their ire by indulging in an altercation with the fire brigade personnel. The crowd swelled to over 10,000 even as the policemen looked on. At around 9am, airport authorities moved with Armymen from Danapur and the area was cordoned off.

Confusion also prevailed at the airport as anxious relatives and friends of passengers gathered outside to get any information on the crash. At around 9 am, the airport authorities put up a list of 44 passengers who were to get down in Patna. The names of at lest three passengers were missing from the list. Later a junior employee of the Airport Authority of India (AAI) came up with a list of six more Lucknow-bound passengers apart from the six crew members. However, entry inside the airport building was banned even for bereaved relatives.

Meanwhile civil aviation minister, Sharad Yadav, union health minister C.P. Thakur along with senior officials of the Civil Aviation Ministry including IA chairman Sunil Arora, chairman AAI, D.V Gupta and director general civil aviation H.S Khola were camping here.

Civil Aviation Secretary A.H. Jung announced in Delhi that a court of inquiry had been ordered into the crash which could have been caused either by the aircraft losing height or the pilot having misjudged the altitude. He denied there was a fire before the plane crashed.

-(with agencies)