Air India Express flight IX-1344 crashed yesterday.
Dubai:
Dubai-based Indian expat Shemir Vadakkan Pathappiriyam is exhausted but elated as all seven of his family and brother survived the Air India Express plane crash in Kerala which claimed the lives of at least 18 co-passengers on Friday.
Since Friday evening, Shemir, 41, who works as a logistics manager at Dubai Silicon Oasis, has been making frantic phone calls to various trauma centers in Kerala near Kozhikode airport to get information about his family members on board. of theft.
Air India Express flight IX-1344 from Dubai with 190 on board passed the table runway at Kozhikode Airport in Kerala on Friday evening landing in heavy rain and fell into a valley 35 feet below and collapsed in two, killing at least 18 people, including the captain, Captain Deepak Sathe and his co-pilot Akhilesh Kumar.
“The news was a real shock and we couldn’t contact them for a long time,” Mr. Shemir told PTI.
“When I finally managed to talk to my wife, she told me that she and the other family members had been rescued by the local population,” he said and thanked the authorities and the population. locals who rushed to the rescue of his family at the crash site.
Mr. Pathappiriyam’s wife was traveling with their two daughters and one son. His brother Safvan’s wife and their daughter and son were also on board the Vande Bharat flight from Dubai to Kozhikode.
Mr. Pathappiriyam said family members were injured in the crash but their injuries were not life threatening. However, they are admitted to trauma centers at three different hospitals in Calicut and Malappuram in Kerala.
“My brother’s visa had expired, so we decided to send the two families together,” Pathappiriyam said.
According to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Boeing 737 plane was carrying 184 people, including 10 babies, 2 pilots and 4 cabin crew.
Indian consulates in Dubai and Sharjah have activated five helplines to provide information to family members of the deceased and injured.
Abdul Manaf, another expat in Dubai, said he was relieved to finally come into contact with his wife Hadiya and child, who are currently hospitalized in Kozhikode.
“Such a relief after talking to him. You can imagine what I went through after hearing the news,” Mr. Manaf told the Khaleej Times. They were in Dubai for four months on a visit visa.
Abdullah, a resident of Dubai, and his wife were relieved to hear from their nephew hours after the accident.
He said: “My wife’s sister, Zenobia Mohammed Ali, accompanied by her two boys aged 4 and 15 were on board. The older boy Azam borrowed someone’s cell phone and called us. We are happy that he is well and that he was able to speak.
“My sister-in-law and her youngest son were spotted at two separate hospitals in Calicut. Our relatives are trying to locate them. We don’t know what kind of injuries they suffered but we are just indebted to God that they are alive, ”he said.
According to the new Indian Consul General in Dubai, Dr Aman Puri, there were all kinds of Indians on board the flight.
“Some were cases of visa cancellation and expiration, some were traveling to meet with family members, some had lost their jobs and some were traveling for medical emergencies,” Puri told local media.
