22 officials who were involved in the rescue operation of the crashed Air India flight in Kerala’s Kozhikode airport were reported to be tested positive for the coronavirus.
These officers include the District Magistrate and the local police chief.
“They were quarantined after the rescue operations at the plane crash site ended. Most of them were on location,” the district medical officer was quoted as saying by NDTV.
As per the report, the district medical officer’s team is undertaking risk assessment and more details are awaited.
The Dubai-Kozhikode Air India Express flight (IX-1344), which was part of the Vande Bharat mission, with 190 people on board, overshoot the runway amid heavy rain, plunged deep down 35 ft. into the valley below and broke in two pieces while landing at Karipur International Airport in Kerala’s Kozhikode district on August 7. Eighteen people including two pilots died in the plane crash.
However, the flight did not catch fire and thus a greater disaster was averted.
Reacting on the accident, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has banned the use of wide-body aircraft at Kozhikode International Airport during monsoon season days “out of abundant caution” after the tragic plane crash.
Apart from the passengers, the pilot-in-command Captain Deepak V Sathe and his co-pilot Captain Akhilesh Kumar were killed in the tragic air accident.