THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Though Kerala is the only state in the country which boasts of four international airports, the aircraft accident at the Kozhikode airport on Friday is the first major air mishap to occur in the state.
Though the 2010 Mangalore air crash claimed the lives of 158 people — Malayalis accounted for over a third of the casualties — barring some stray incidents, involving foreign and domestic aircraft, the state was free of major air mishaps.
Two Navy sailors were killed when one of the helicopter hangar doors of the Indian Naval Air Squadron 322 collapsed at INS Garuda, Kochi on December 27, 2018. But it was a freak accident.
Other than two accidents at the Naval Base airport in Kochi, no casualty was reported in any of the aircraft accidents which had occurred in the state. Seven people were injured when a Gulf Air aircraft with 137 passengers and six crew members on board overshot the runway and came to rest in the slush at the Kochi airport in 2011.
In another accident involving an Air India Express flight at the Kochi airport during a monsoon season in 2017, 108 passengers on board the Abu Dhabi-Kochi Boeing 737-800 flight had a close shave after the aircraft veered off the taxiway and came to a halt in the nearby drain at the airport.
It forced an emergency evacuation of passengers on board. But the accident happened when the aircraft was hauling to the apron from the taxiway of the airport. Luckily there were no casualties. The 2011 accident involving a Gulf Air aircraft at Kochi airport had also occurred during a monsoon season.