An Air India Express flight Boing 737-800 burst in to flames when it missed a safe landing on a table top runway in manglore airport killing 158 onboard passengers instantly. The flight was from Dubai and was trying to land at a tricky hilltop airport in Manglore (southern India), overshot the runway and crashed over a cliff.

The below link shows a list of passengers onboard.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tfCk4KBQUfwls4T76yUmObA&output=html

Though the runway was a tricky one, it was 8000 feet long which was sufficient for a 737 to land. But what actually went wrong was that the first point of contact between the flight and the runway wasn’t within the first 2000 feets which led to the overshoot. Reports say that the The plane hit a radar pole just before falling off the cliff.

A table top runway is one such which can be found in hilly areas. Such runways are usually built by leveling hills.

Some news state that the Boeing 737-800 appeared to skid off the table-top runway in rain and plunged into forest atleast 100 feet below.Eight people survived from among 166 passengers and crew on board.

The pilot was Serbian and said to be highly experienced with over 10000 hours flying and with a Commando designation. The co pilot who was an Indian was also experienced.

The flight’s black box has been recovered, the United Arab Emirates state news agency WAM said. Air India official Nambiar said the search for the flight data recorder was still going on.

Dense black smoke billowed from the wreckage of the flaming Boeing 737-800 aircraft in a hilly area with thick grass and trees just outside Mangalore’s Bajpe airport.

There were unconfirmed reports the child taken to a Mangalore hospital with severe burns, but the child’s fate was not immediately known.

Workers pulled scores of burned bodies from the blackened tangle of aircraft cables, twisted metal, charred trees and mud at the crash site. Many of the dead were strapped into their seats, their bodies burned beyond recognition.

Indian officials said that conversations with the cockpit and other records showed the flight was operating normally before the touchdown.

“There was no distress indication from the pilot. That means between the pilot and the airport communication there was no indication of any problem,” V.P. Agarwal, director of Airports Authority of India, told local television.