Mangalore air crash 2010

Mangalore Air Crash 2010

This is an account of my personal experience of this tragic accident in which 158 lives were lost,

May 22nd 2010 at 630hrs air india express IX812 from Dubai carrying 166 people crashes at Bajpe airport Mangalore after it overshot the runway while landing.

My day began, a regular saturday morning, I didn't have my morning class so i slept in oblivious of what was happening in mangalore. For some reason unknown to me at the moment my cellphone kept receiving messages and I kept ignoring them till I got annoyed to see who was trying to ruin my saturday, the messages I received were from family ,the news alerts that i subscribed to. Message after message making me aware of the current events.

A J HOSPITAL EMERGENCY AND CASUALTY

Initially I just could not believe that this actually happened to this quiet little coastal city, i had no access to a T.V so I called my family to bring me to date with the news, when i confirmed what was going on my reaction was just "HOLY MOLY" jumped off the bed got dressed and rushed outside, you could hear the wailing ambulances in the distance.

the plane overshot the runway and ripped through the vegetation
to crash in the gorge below

the gorge were the plane crashed

I still couldn't comprehend the situation so I went down to The hospital, and yes there was a whole bunch of people police personel and ambulances in front of the emergency department, most ambulances were being redirected to the morgue at the medical college where i was a 2nd year med student, our hospital happened to be the nearest and most equipped to handle the casualties of the disaster.
The scene at the morgue was gruesome you could only recognize the charred bodies as human by the stumps left of the limbs, individual identification was almost impossible.

the only recognizable part of the plane

Wanted to go out and help but we had no leadership nor were we asked by anyone to go for the rescue and relief measures. By around 2pm we had news that some of our senior students had gone out voluntarily to aid in the rescue. The airport is 15 km out of our way and we had no mode of transport to get to the crash site.
We gathered a group of like minded people and decided to head out, three of us borrowed a motorbike from our friend and rode triple( illegal anywhere in the world) we had our doctor coats on and when we got to the police barricades blocking traffic toward the airport, they let us through! when we stated our intent and of course they required our ID proof.
We reached the crash site at 4pm and immediately seeing our medical coats the rescue team asked us to arrange ambulances and to set up camp to provide first aid. We immediately called our Interns and explained the situation, they got permission from the AJ Hospital medical director who gave us the green light to whatever equipment and meds that we needed.

the dead being carried out

The meds and ambulance took some time to get to us during that time we took the role of rescue volunteers but unfortunately there were no more survivors, we had to help carry out the dead in stretchers from the bottom of the gorge by forming a human chain. While we were busy pulling out and carrying bodies there was a sudden unrest in the otherwise focussed rescue, everybody started to rush out of the gorge as the roar of a plane could be heard from the airport, it took off right above our heads, my heart was in my mouth for a few moments, i was near the bottom of the gorge with no way to get out! contemplating the possibility of the worst outcome! the airport was functional by 530pm 

this caused a shrill down everyones spine!

As soon as the ambulance arrived we began to set up camp and informing the rescuers  of the availability of first aid and medical care. We became medical volunteers putting into use our skills, this filled us with a sense of satisfaction that we were able to help in a little way. The rescue efforts were called off by 730pm as all the passengers on the ill fated flight had apparently been accounted for.

rescue efforts called off at 730pm

All that was remaining was to find the black box ( its actually orange and called the flight data recorder), I thought this was going to be especially tough given that earlier in the day a group of opportunistic locals had apparently been taking items from the crash site which included money, jewellery, bags, boxes, this led me to think of the possibility that someone had taken the black box home!

After the rescue operations co-ordinators left we still had to manage the huge queue of firemen and local volunteers, there were 6 of us to handle the entire crowd!! Later a reporter for an American news channel came to us and asked for an interview, the guys pointed at me and i had to answer her questions. When we returned to our hospital we smelled like jet fuel and charred flesh, we had to get rid of the clothes we wore that day, none of us slept that night the scenes of the morning kept playing in our heads.

i will never forget that rainy day in May, My deepest condolences to the families of the158 victims, nothing we do can replace them, we can only cherish the memories that they left us with, they died a cruel death but will never be forgotten.

The guys who i need to really thank for their sincere efforts that day: Dr Alexander Paul, Dr Pradeep Senapathi, Ivan Mani, Arun George, Midhun TT...
though the little we did, you guys are real heroes