Kozhikode Plane Crash: Kerala Police Forms 30-Member SIT To Probe Mishap Which Left 18 Dead, Many Injured

Kerala Police said a case has been registered under various provisions of the Aircraft Act and Indian Penal Code sections 337, 338 and 304 A, based on the statement by one of the CISF personnel who was on Airport Periphery security duty near the site that day.

Officials stand on the debris of the Air India Express flight that skidded off a runway while landing in Kozhikode. (Image: PTI)

The Kerala police on Sunday constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to carry out a detailed investigation into the tragic Air India Express plane crash Karipur international airport in Kozhokode that left 18 passengers dead and many more critically injured. A Kerela government press release stated that a 30-member SIT team for the probe into the unfortunate mishap will be headed by Malappuram Additional Superintendent of Police G Sabu, reported news agency PTI. Kerala Police said a case has been registered under various provisions of the Aircraft Act and Indian Penal Code sections 337, 338 and 304 A, based on the statement by one of the CISF personnel who was on Airport Periphery security duty near the site that day. Section 337 of IPC deals with causing hurt to any person by doing any act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life, or the personal safety of others Section 338 deals with causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others, while 304 A deals with causing death by negligence. The Civil Aviation Ministry has initiated an investigation under the aegis of AAIB (Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau) with the support of Flight Safety Officials to probe into the cause of the incident. The black box and flight recorder of the crashed flight has been brought to Delhi on Sunday for carrying out further investigation and ascertaining the cause of the accident . "Soon we will have all transcripts from recovered black boxes. We are also going to talk to Boeing to examine the aircraft's original equipment and check for defects. Only after conducting a thorough and unbiased probe, can we tell what exactly happened," DGCA Anil Kumar said on Sunday. Eighteen people including both the flight pilots were killed and many got critically injured when the Air India Express flight flying in from Dubai with 190 passengers on board skidded off the table top runway while landing in Kozhikode Airport amid heavy rains and nosedived into a deep gorge 35 feet below, splitting the plane into two portions on Friday night. The body of pilot-in command Captain Deepak Vasanth Sathe was flown out from Cochin to his hometown in Mumbai and his funeral will take place on Tuesday, an Air India official said. Meanwhile Akhilesh Kumar, the co-pilot of the crashed flight, was cremated on Sunday at his home town in Mathura.