Police official says up to 160 feared dead in crash of Air India plane in southern city

Plane crashes in India, 160 feared dead

NEW DELHI — An Air India plane arriving from Dubai crashed Saturday morning after it overshot a runway while trying to land in southern India, and officials feared as many as 160 people on board were killed.

Television images showed smoke rising from the aircraft at the airport in the city of Mangalore as rescuers struggled to reach those inside.

Officials in the state of Karnataka said of the 169 people believed to be on board, only six or seven might have survived.

“This is a major calamity,” Karnataka Home Minister V.S. Acharya told CNN-IBN TV.

Firefighters were working to put out the flames, he said.

Seemant Singh, a police official at Mangalore airport, told NDTV that conditions at the airport were poor when the plane overshot the runway at about 6 a.m.