NEW DELHI, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- India's civil aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said a late touchdown may have caused Air India Express plane to overshoot the tabletop runway in the southern state of Kerala.
The DGCA chief Arun Kumar, in an interview to a local newspaper Hindustan Times published on Monday, said an investigation to ascertain the cause of the crash was underway.
The plane IX 1344 crashed on Friday evening at Kozhikode airport in Kerala, killing 18 people including both pilots and injuring more than 150 others.
"We don't know much, the actual investigation is on. They (investigators) have got the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder so they have to open them and they have to study the transcripts and also the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) transcripts which they have obtained," Kumar said.
"All we know at this point of time is that the touchdown was late. That is the ATC information, more than 3,000 feet. Actually, if it was 3,000 feet, 4,000 feet or 2,000 feet -- that will come out once everything is decoded. It was a 9,000 feet runway, which is a fairly long runway as I have been saying all along."
The plane landed amid heavy rainfall and fell into a 35 feet gorge before breaking into two parts.
The flight with 190 people on board was bringing Indian citizens from Dubai.
Investigators have recovered the black box and cockpit voice recorder from the crash site. Enditem
