Air India Express crash | Nearly 600 Keralites quarantined after helping with rescue operation

Nearly 600 persons who were part of the rescue operation of the ill-fated Air India Express plane that crashed at Kerala's Kozhikode district on August 7 are currently in quarantine.

As per a News18 report, this includes Malappuram collector K Gopalakrishnan and the CISF personnel who were among the first to reach the crash site at the Karipur airport.

Even though the area falls under a containment zone, locals had rushed in to rescue as many passengers as possible. This included airport staff, volunteers, health workers, police, ambulance driver, media personnel, and even people who rushed injured passengers to the hospitals in their vehicles.

In the rush to save maximum lives, most people could not follow COVID-19 protocols such as social distancing. As a precautionary measure, Kerala Health Minister KK Shailaja had urged all those persons who were part of the rescue operation to home quarantine.

It was later learnt that at least two passengers of the ill-fated flight were coronavirus positive at the time of the accident; one of them survived the crash, while the other was among the 18 persons who lost their lives.

Shabeer AP, who was a part of the rescue operation, and is currently under home quarantine, recalled the events of the night. He said: “We reached the spot after hearing a huge crash sound. When I reached there were already around 10-15 people there. It was raining heavily. Initially, there was a fear of the flight catching fire, but hearing the cries of the passengers, we just forgot everything and tried to rescue the people.”

The Air India aircraft had 190 passengers on board and was attempting to land on a tabletop runway in bad weather conditions when it overshot the runway and nosedived into a gorge 35 feet below. The plane had split into three due to the impact, killing both the pilot and the co-pilot on the spot.

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