Kerala and probably India can’t forget that rainy night when Air India Express which was in Vande Bharat Mission crashed in Karipur airport. 18 people were dead including the piolets, however, not everyone knows that the causality could be more than a hundred if it had caught fire on the crash.
A devastating tragedy was prevented on Friday at the Karipur International Airport as the crash-landed Air India Express flight didn’t catch fire. It was an Austrian manufactured fire rescue vehicle that helped the plane from not catching fire, limiting the casualty to 18.
Rosenbauer Panther is a model of airport crash tender produced by Austrian manufacturer Rosenbauer. This ultra-modern fire rescue vehicle was imported to Kerala at a cost of Rs 10 crore. 4 units are deployed at Kozhikode airport.
Usually when a flight lands on runway, fire units are readied. On Friday, When AI Express touched the ground, one of the fire unit was directed to follow the plane by air traffic control unit.
As aviation fuel evaporates into the atmosphere, chances of fire, within minutes, are high. However, Panther prevented it by emitting Film-Forming Fog (FFF1). Soon the other three units also joined.
A Panther vehicle can store 10,000 litres water and 1300 litre forming agent. Though aviation fuel was released from the destructed plane, fire was prevented and thus rescue operations were possible.
The Air India Express flight, part of Vande Bharat Mission, skidded off the runway while landing at the Kozhikode Airport on Friday evening, fell 35 feet into the valley below and broke into two, leaving 18 people on board dead and several injured.
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