Grisly
search under way
after midair collision over India
At least 300 feared dead
November 12,
1996...........................Web
posted at: 07:55 p.m. EST (2455 GMT)
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Rescue workers
dragged charred, mangled bodies from the wreckage
of two airliners that collided in flight Tuesday,
while authorities tried to figure out what went
wrong. A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747-100
collided with an Ilyushin 76 on a charter cargo
flight from Chimkent, Kazakhstan, according to
officials in India and Kazakhstan. The aircraft
exploded into a massive fireball that turned the
evening skies red as dawn, witnesses said.
At least 300 people died, though an official
death count had not yet been provided. At last
report, some 200 bodies had been recovered. Three
people survived initially, only to die at the
hospital or enroute, police said. The stench of
burned flesh mixed with the smell of aviation
fuel and smoldering rubber at the scene, near the
town of Dadri, about 46 miles southwest of New
Delhi.
The Saudi Arabian Airlines flight SV763
carried 287 people including crew, an airline
official told CNN. The Kazahk Flight KZA1907
reportedly had 27 passengers and 10 crew on
board, said air traffic officials at the Almaty,
Kazakhstan airport.
Villagers in the rural farming area, where
the planes descended in two fireballs, helped
rescue efforts, carrying away bodies in
tractor-driven carts. Farmer Ram Prasad said he
was standing outside his home at dusk, and looked
up to see "a red ball of fire. The entire
sky was red."
The Saudi jet had just been asked to climb to
14,000 feet while the Kazahk jet had been asked
to descend to 15,000 feet when the accident
occurred at 6:40 p.m. local time, said H.S. Khola
of the Indian Civil Aviation Authority. The Saudi
jet had been in the air seven minutes, he said.
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