Indian Airliner Crashes Killing 158

Air India Express Crashes, Killing 158 People, 8 survive

The Boeing 737-800 plane, flight IX-812 from Dubai to Mangalore, apparently skidded off the runway in rain at Mangalore airport in India’s Karnataka state at about 05:30UTC, killing 158 of 166 people aboard, the Airline said, adding that all the passengers were Indian nationals.

Villagers and rescue workers rush to the scene of the Air India plane crash at Mangalore Airport. Image: AP. Image may be subject to copyright. See Fair Use Notice.

“The accident occurred after the aircraft landed at Mangalore airport and overshot the runway,” Air India said.

According to another report the plane was carrying 163 passengers and 9 crew, and only six people survived the crash.

“The plane had broken into two. I jumped out of the plane after it crashed. I saw two other people also come out,” a crash survivor told a local TV channel.

“There was a tire-burst kind of noise. I tried to get out of the front but saw that there was a big fire. So I went back again and jumped out from there.”

The flight had already landed. There was slight rain. The flight skidded off,” according to an eye witness, “After that it caught fire. Villagers, everyone there, came to rescue.”

A local TV channel showed charred bodies strewn in the forested terrain, according to a report.

Related Links:

• Most Dangerous Airlines

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Gulf Oil Disaster: Images of Despair

Views of Gulf Oil Slick by NASA’s MISR

Original Caption Released with Image:

These unique images of the Deepwater Horizon oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico were obtained by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument aboard NASA’s Terra spacecraft on May 17, 2010, at around 16:40 UTC (11:40 a.m. CDT). The top panel is a false-color image created by combining data from the red band of the 26-degree forward-viewing camera, where the oil appears dark, with the blue and green bands of the nadir (vertical-viewing) camera, where the oil appears bright. The result causes the oil spill to stand out dramatically in shades of cyan, while other features like clouds and the land appear close to their natural color. The Mississippi Delta is visible in the upper left portion of the image. The red symbol indicates the former location of the drilling platform. The image dimensions are 346 by 258 kilometers (215 by 160 miles) and north is toward the top of the image.

The white arrow in the right-center of the image points to a plume of smoke, most likely from a controlled burn of oil collected on the surface. It appears as a dark streak against the brighter reflection of the sunlight from the ocean. The lower two panels are enlarged images of the area around the smoke plume acquired by MISR’s 46-degree forward-viewing and 46-degree backward-viewing cameras. At these view angles, and for the illumination conditions on this date, the smoke particles appear bright and sunglint from the ocean surface is much weaker. The views at the two different angles cover the same physical area of 42 by 30 kilometers (26 by 19 miles). Controlled burns of the oil began in early May in an attempt to remove oil from the open water. The clouds in the lower right quadrant of these panels have an apparent shift in position with angle of view due to their altitude above the surface. However, a bright point to the south of the plume does not show such a shift, and is likely a boat observing the controlled burn. The apparent shift in position of the smoke plume itself places its altitude at about 560 meters (1,840 feet) above the surface.

MISR was built and is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Terra spacecraft is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The MISR data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center in Hampton, Va. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. Source: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team

“Controlled burns” give the false impression that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is under control. May 19, 2010. Source: Chief Petty Officer John Kepsimelis, U.S. Coast Guard.

A dead Northern Gannet covered in oil lies along Grand Isle Beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana, May 21, 2010.  Credit: REUTERS/Sean Gardner. Image may be subject to copyright. More images posted here.

Related Links:

• Gulf Oil Slick Dragon Tail Enters Loop Current

• BP Oil Spill: Turtles Are Dying
• BP Oil Leak: Mega Disaster Enters New Dimension
• BP Leak Already Biggest Oil Disaster in U.S. History
• Fire-Earth Oil Spill forecast
• Gulf of Mexico: A Waiting Disaster
• Oil Disasters [Index Page includes links to other oil spills, news and information]

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Serial No 1,751. Starting April 2010, each entry on this blog has a unique serial number. If any of the numbers are missing, it may mean that the corresponding entry has been blocked by Google/the authorities in your country. Please drop us a line if you detect any anomaly/missing number(s).

Tropical Cyclone Laila Kills 83 in India, Sri Lanka

Cyclone Laila: Leaves 83 dead, 600,000 Displaced

Cyclone Laila weakened into a depression on Friday and later became a low pressure area as it moved toward south Orissa, leaving in its wake a trail of death and destruction including at least 57 dead and 75,000 more people displaced, official sources said.

In Sri Lanka, meanwhile, a week of heavy rains and flooding left at least 26 people  dead and more than half a million others displaced, officials at the Disaster Management Center reported on May May 21.

One of Cyclone Laila’s thunderstorms reached nearly 18km (11 miles) high

This 3-D image of Cyclone Laila was made using data from TRMM’s Precipitation Radar. It shows that the powerful thunderstorms northwest of tropical cyclone Laila shot up to heights above 17.5 kilometers (~57,415 feet/10.8 miles). Source: NASA/SSAI, Hal Pierce

Tropical Cyclone Laila Soaks India

Tropical Cyclone Laila brought heavy rains and strong winds to the Bay of Bengal and parts of India in May 2010. This color-coded image shows estimated rainfall amounts for May 17 through May 19, as well as the storm track from May 17 to May 20. The heaviest amounts of rain—300 or more millimeters (12 or more inches)—appear in dark blue. The lightest amounts of rain—less than 37.5 millimeters (1.5 inches)—appear in pale green. The storm track is indicated by a pink line. The thicker, darker portion of that line shows where the storm intensified on May 19. This image is based on data from the Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis produced at Goddard Space Flight Center, which estimates rainfall by combining measurements from many satellites and calibrating them using rainfall measurements from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. Source of image and [edited] caption: NASA E/O. Click image to enlarge.

Tropical Cyclone Laila

Tropical Cyclone Laila hovered over the eastern coastline of India and the Bay of Bengal, and skirted Sri Lanka on May 19, 2010. MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image the same day. Spanning hundreds of kilometers, the storm extends a spiral arm toward the northeast, covering much of India’s coast. In the south, the storm spans most of southern India. Source of image and [edited] caption: NASA E/O. Click image to enlarge.

Related Links:

• Cyclone Laila Forces 50,000 Indians to Evacuate
• 2010 Disaster Calendar [May]
• 2010: Year One of Human-Enhanced Disasters