KOZHIKODE: The death toll in the Air India Express flight crash at the airport here, rose to 18 on Saturday with one more passenger succumbing to injuries, Malappuram District Collector K Gopalakrishnan said. Except one, all those who had perished in the accident have been identified, he said.

Eighteen people were killed and scores injured when the flight, which was part of the Vande Bharat Mission, from Dubai with 190 on board overshot the table top runway at 7.41 pm while landing in heavy rains and fell into a valley 35 feet below and broke into two portions on Friday night. The pilot-in-command Captain Deepak Sathe and his co- pilot Akhilesh Kumar were among those who lost their lives.

The black box of the Air India Express flight IX-1344 have been found. The black box - a Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) and a Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) - stores crucial information about a plane's altitude, position and speed, as well as records of conversations between the pilots. It is very vital air crash investigations.

The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has said the flight continued running to the end of the runway amid heavy rain and "fell down in the valley and broke down in two pieces". DGCA, Civil Aviation Ministry senior officials, Airports Authority of India, and Air Navigation Service members to meet in Delhi today over the incident.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri visited Kozhikode this afternoon and has ordered an investigation.

Digital Flight Data Recorder & Cockpit Voice Recorder of the ill-fated aircraft have been retrieved. AAIB is conducting investigations. pic.twitter.com/WCOPV5ETTf
— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) August 8, 2020

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed anguish at the Air India Express aircraft accident in Kozhikode on Friday and said authorities are at the spot, providing all assistance to the affected. He also spoke with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in this regard.