Kerala plane crash: AI Express employees pay tribute to co-pilot Akhilesh Kumar in Delhi

Air India Express employees on Sunday paid their tributes to co-pilot Akhilesh Kumar, who lost his life in the Kozhikode plane crash incident. Kumar's mortal remains were brought from Kochi to the Delhi Airport at 2:25 am on Sunday, which are now being taken to his native place in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh.

Around 200 Air India members paid tributes to Kumar and observed two minutes of silence and prayed for the peace of departed officer.

“Our last conversation with Akhilesh was on Raksha Bandhan on a video call because the ‘Rakhi’ could not reach him. He was wearing a ‘Kalava’. He was scheduled to come home on August 15, 16 but God has other wishes,” Kumar’s brother-in-law told ANI.

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About the tragic incident

The Air India Express flight IX-1134 from Dubai met with an accident at Kozhikode, Kerala on Friday. The Boeing 737 aircraft which was deployed under the Vande Bharat Mission overshot the runway at the Kozhikode airport at 7:41 pm and nosedived into the valley, splitting into two pieces leading to the death of 18 persons including the two pilots. There were a total of 190 people on board the ill-fated plane, out of which 184 were passengers and six crew members.

Out of the 18 dead so far, 14 are adults (seven males and females each) and four are children. Both the Pilot and the Co-Pilot are among those dead. At present, 149 passengers are hospitalised, of them 23 with serious injuries. Till now, 23 passengers have been discharged. There are few passengers from Tamil Nadu and Telangana also.

All the dead have been identified, eight from Kozhikode district, six from Malappuram district, and two from Palakkad district. The post mortem process has been expedited despite the COVID-19 threat and is expected to finish before evening. All the plane accident victims will be tested for COVID-19 including those who died in the crash. So far, only one victim has tested positive for Coronavirus.

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(With inputs from ANI)