NEW DELHI — As many as 160 people were feared dead after an Air India plane en route from Dubai crashed and burst into flames at dawn today after overshooting a hilltop runway in southern India while trying to land in the rain.
Television images showed dense black smoke billowing from the Boeing 737-800 surrounded by flames just outside Mangalore city airport in a hilly, treed area with thick grass.
Firefighters sprayed water on the wreckage as rescue crews struggled to find survivors. One firefighter ran up a hill carrying an injured child.
Air India official Jitender Bhargava said the plane carried 160 passengers and six crew members. Officials in the state of Karnataka said only six or seven might have survived.
“This is a major calamity,” Karnataka Home Minister V.S. Acharya told CNN-IBN TV.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed condolences and promised compensation for the families of the victims.
As the plane tried to land about 6 a.m. today, it overshot the runway and crashed, Bhargava told The Associated Press.
The crash could be the deadliest in India since the November 1996 midair collision between a Saudi airliner and a Kazakh cargo plane near New Delhi that killed 349 people.
Scores of villagers scrambled over the hilly terrain to reach the wreckage and began aiding in the rescue operation.
Pre-monsoon rains over the past two days caused low visibility in the area, officials said.
The airport’s location, on a plateau surrounded by hills, made it difficult for firefighters to reach the scene Saturday, officials said. Aviation experts said the airport’s “tabletop” runway, which ends in a valley, makes a severe crash inevitable if a plane overshoots it.
The airport is about 19 miles from the city of Mangalore.
