Family members leave for Mangalore

MUMBAI - A special Air India flight with 20 rescuers and 10 relatives of the dead in the Air India crash left here Saturday for Mangalore, its director Anup Srivastava said Saturday.

“As the Mangalore airport is closed now, we will land in Calicut (Kozhikode) and then transport them to Mangalore by road,” Srivastava told reporters here.

“We will also send another flight in a short while with more rescue members. We have issued helpline numbers and we are contacting relatives (of passengers),” he said.

The plane was carrying 160 passengers, including four infants, and six crew members. According to Air India, 158 people were killed in the crash.

He said the flight left Dubai at 1.15 p.m. (local time) and was expected to land in Mangalore at 6.30 a.m. (IST).

“The accident occurred at 6.30 a.m. as it landed at Mangalore and overshot the runway,” he said.

He declined to go into the cause of the accident and said it would be the subject matter of the probe.

“It is too early to comment upon what led to the crash. It is not prudent on my part to comment on the investigation. We have a regulatory authority that will investigate the reasons for the crash,” he added.