Seven-year-old twins Zain and Zamil Kundot Parakkal are among the lucky passengers who survived the accident at Kerala's Karipur airport. At least 18 people have been killed and over 100 injured when the flight travelling from Dubai to Kozhikode crash-landed on the tabletop runway at the airport on Friday evening. It's pilot Captain Deepak Vasant Sathe, First Officer Akhilesh Kumar and 16 passengers are now confirmed dead.
However, whether the twins' mother survived the crash is yet unknown.
Videos of the seven-year-olds dazed and uttering their name out from the hospital bed in Kozhikode emerged on Friday evening, as the staff attempted to trace their family. The boys were labelled as the 'unidentified twins' by district authorities. They were shifted to the Red Crescent hospital in Feroke Chungam, soon after they were rescued by local residents and airport volunteers. They are both natives of Malappuram.
"They have only sustained minor injuries to their leg. Nobody from their family was with them when they were brought here. They were discharged on Friday evening after their uncle arrived at the hospital and claimed them," a staff member from Red Crescent confirmed to TNM.
The twins are among 50 minors who were in the Boeing-737 Flight IX 1134 which overshot the runway and split into pieces on Friday. The 18 casualties from the accident include children, one of them as young as 10-months old who did not survive the accident.
Zain and Zamil's brother and sister, who were also in the flight, is reportedly admitted to the MIMS hospital in Kozhikode. Among the list of passengers of the Air India flight is 10-year-old Zeya Kundot Parakkal and 14-year-old Ziyan Kondot Parakkal, the 7-year-old's siblings. MIMS officials have confirmed to TNM that Zeya is being treated at the Orthopedic department as she suffered a fracture, while Ziyan's condition is stable.
"Their father is in Dubai and the family was traveling back to Kerala. We do not have details on whether the rest of the family survived the accident. The children were alone in the hospital," the hospital staff added.
The Boeing-737 IX Flight 1134 operated by Air India Express was repatritating Indians stranded in Dubai as part of the Vande Bharat Mission. On Friday evening, it landed in the Kozhikode International Airport and overshot the runway. The flight plunged 30 feet down from the table top runway and crashed into a wall, splitting into three parts.
Among the most serious air accidents to have taken place in 2020, the Air India Crash and its victims have been condoled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has initiated a formal inquiry on what went wrong with the aircraft. Relief teams too have been dispatched to Kerala from Mumbai and Delhi. District collectors, locals, medical teams and civic volunteer groups were engaged in rescue operations since post 8 pm on Friday.
A volunteer confirmed to TNM that the rescue operation was concluded swiftly, in 30-45 minutes. However, a group of people who were trapped between mangled seats near the tail area which split faced difficulty in being rescued.
"We had to cut open the seats and release them and that took time. One of them did not survive the accident. The others were hospitalised," the rescue workers added.