news20100522wsj

[Today's Paper] from [The Wall Street Journal]]

[BusinessBUSINESS MAY 21, 2010
By PAUL BECKETT And ARLENE CHANG
Air India Crash Kills 158
｛エアインド航空機、墜落で１５８人死亡｝

NEW DELHI — An Air India Express plane crashed at Mangalore airport in southern India Saturday morning with 158 of the 166 people on board now feared dead.
｛ニューデリー発--エアインドエクスプレス航空機が土曜日の朝、インド南部のマンガローブ空港で墜落、現在のところ乗客乗員１６６人のうち１５８人が死亡したと思われる｝

There were eight survivors, according to the Minister of Civil Aviation. The plane, arriving from Dubai, overshot the runway at the airport around 6:30 a.m. local time and burst into flames, Anup Srivastava, an Air India spokesman, said at a press conference.

He declined to comment on the cause of the crash. "We have regulatory authorities that will conduct investigations according to procedure," he said. "There will be an inquiry, and the reason will emerge."

{Firefighters try to put out the fire on the Air India plane. It overshot the runway while landing in the southern Indian city of Mangalore.}

There was good visibility and light rain at the time of the crash, the worst in India in a decade.

A police spokesman said that rescue operations, including 25 fire-operation units and ambulances, were stationed at the site.

"This is a major calamity," said V.S. Acharya, home minister for the state of Karnataka, on CNN-IBN TV. Television pictures showed rescue workers struggling to deal with the wreckage in a small valley near the airport.

The crash is believed to be the first major crash of an airliner in India since July 17, 2000, when an Alliance Air Boeing 737-200 crashed into houses during a second landing attempt at Patna, killing 51.

At the scene Saturday afternoon at an impromptu press conference, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said the pilot appeared to have lost control of the plane. He said the weather during the landing was fine. The pilot reportedly had flown into the airport several times. He said all the crew on the plane had died. He said the Indian government will probe the cause of the accident and that the black box inflight recorder had yet to be recovered.

Mr. Patel also said the aircraft was one and a half years old.

Dubai and southern India have close ties because of the number of migrant workers who go from southern India to Dubai for work.

One survivor, interviewed in the hospital by NDTV, a New Delhi television channel, said the one of the plane's tires had burst on landing and that passengers had little time to escape the plane before it burst into flames after crashing off the end of the runway.

"It was not smooth, the flight shook on landing," said the survivor, whose name was not given. "Our hands and feet caught fire."

Air India has been struggling to overcome the global recession, payments for new aircraft, an entrenched staff, a botched merger and increasing competition from private carriers. In the year ended March 31, its parent company National Aviation Company of India Ltd. is estimated to have posted losses totaling about $1.2 billion, making it one of the global industry's most unprofitable carriers and a major financial problem for the Indian government.

Chairman Arvind Jadhav has been trying to turn the airline around by seeking to cut employee ranks, increase cargo on long-haul flights and persuade the government to inject about $2.2 billion in funds.

The airline's origins date to 1932, when Indian industrialist and aviation pioneer J.R.D. Tata founded Tata Airlines. It later became government-owned Air India. In 2007, Air India was merged with Indian Airlines, the state-run domestic service. But the merger has only been partially completed.

In the meantime, Indian private carriers such as Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. and Jet Airways have eaten into its domestic market share. And international carriers have begun flying directly from abroad to Indian cities beyond Delhi and Mumbai.

— Amol Sharma contributed to this article.