A swift response from the fire fighting team at Calicut International Airport was crucial in averting a major tragedy and minimising fatalities after last Friday’s crash of Air India Express flight IX-1344 .
The Boeing 737 aircraft that overshot the runway and broke up could have exploded as its metal surface was extremely hot and covered with aviation fuel — a deadly combination that could lead have led to a fuel-fed inferno within minutes of a crash, an airport official said. “Oil from the wings of the aircraft, where the fuel tanks are located, was not just leaking but gushing out like flood waters,” the official said.
The Hindu Explains | What is a ‘tabletop airport’, and how many are there in India?
The four crash fire trucks were able to reach within three to five minutes; had they been delayed, any spark from metal parts rubbing against each other or from the electrical system could have caused a deadly explosion,” the official said.
Many rescue personnel who climbed on to the wreckage to bring out survivors also experienced minor electric shocks.
The 14 fire personnel who reached the site immediately used foam to cover the fuel tanks as well as well the area on the ground where the fuel had spilled. The foam, or aqueous film-forming foam, helped to cool the aircraft surface and suppress the vapours.
“The circumstances for a sudden deflagaration [combustion through a gas or across a surface driven by the transfer of heat] or a sudden explosion were there due to the huge quantity of fuel turning into vapour due to the heat. This happened because the wreckage was extremely hot due to friction produced from different metal parts colliding against each other as well as rubbing against the runway surface on which the plane landed,” an official said on condition of anonymity.
Kozhikode plane crash | Pilots gave Calicut ATC no hint of danger
Investigators and aviation experts attribute the timely prevention of a fire as the reason why many of the 191 persons on board escaped with injuries.
In a similar accident in 2010 in Mangaluru when the aircraft overshot the runway and plunged into the adjacent gorge, 156 persons lost their lives with only 8 survivors as fire tenders were unable to reach the site on time because of the rough terrain.
According to the eye-witnesses, as the crash fire trucks rushed to the accident site, they saw 10-15 passengers lying on the road, while many others had climbed onto the wings to get out of the stricken aircraft.
Editorial | Safety deficit: On Kozhikode plane crash
“Inside the aircraft, the seats were mangled, and the passengers were crushed under the combined weight of the debris and hand baggage. It was a difficult task to remove many passengers as they were unconscious and secured with seatbelts,” sources said. Hydraulic cutters were used to extract people from the wreckage.
There were airport ambulances, State fire service, CISF personnel as well as local residents who rushed quickly to assist these first responders.
But the airport official warns that though local residents helped in providing immediate help and rushing injured passengers to hospitals, as several hundreds (“nearly a thousand”) of volunteers gathered at the spot they became both a security hazard and a hindrance to the rescue effort.
