NEW DELHI — As many as 160 people were feared dead after an Air India plane arriving from Dubai crashed today as it overshot a runway while trying to land in southern India. Television images showed dense black smoke billowing from the Boeing 737-800 surrounded by flames just outside the Mangalore city airport in a hilly area with thick grass and trees. Officials in the state of Karnataka said of the 169 people believed on board, only six or seven might have survived. The aircraft overshot the runway, hit a fence and went beyond the boundary wall of the airport, according to the Press Trust of India.
Cyclone death toll rises to 23
The death toll from a powerful cyclone that slammed into southeastern India, toppling power lines and triggering landslides, has climbed to 23, a top official said Friday. The storm plunged a large swath of coastal Andhra Pradesh state into darkness when it hit Thursday packing winds of 60 miles per hour. The storm made landfall near Bapatla, about 250 miles southeast of Hyderabad, and waves as high as 9 feet lashed the coast. Even before the cyclone hit, some parts of the state had received up to 1 foot of rain.
Iraq: 23 die in car bombing
A car bomb exploded Friday at an open-air market crowded with shoppers in a Shiite town northeast of Baghdad, killing 23 people and wounding more than 50, Iraqi police and hospital officials said. The bombing struck the town of Khalis, a Shiite enclave 50 miles north of Baghdad surrounded by the largely Sunni province of Diyala. It is a former al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold that has seen several powerful blasts, one a twin bombing on a restaurant in March that killed 57.
Haiti: Flood warning issued
Haitian officials are warning that a heavy rains could trigger floods and landslides in the quake-addled country. Disaster prevention officials issued an “orange” alert for Friday and five following days based on a weather system now forming near Cuba. The alert is their second-highest warning. At-risk areas include Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Leogane and others ravaged by the Jan. 12 earthquake that displaced an estimated 1.5 million people.
Norway: Oil rig evacuated
Norwegian oil company Statoil evacuated 89 workers from an offshore rig in the North Sea after encountering an unexpected change in pressure while drilling a well, a spokesman said Friday. A Statoil spokesman said the situation is “stable” and all safety systems are working properly. There is nothing to indicate a spill will take place, he said. He said 89 of the 229 workers on the Gullfaks C platform were taken off the rig as a precaution while the remainder worked to normalize well pressure.
D.C.: Cockpit blaze in 757
Investigators said a cockpit fire that forced a United Airlines flight to make an emergency landing was concentrated in a piece of window-heating equipment that was the subject of a safety warning three years ago. The National Transportation Safety Board said Friday that two fire extinguishers were required to put out the fire aboard Flight 27 Sunday night. The Boeing 757 was en route from New York to Los Angeles with 112 people aboard when the fire broke out, forcing a landing at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. No one was injured. Passengers said they could see flames when the captain opened the cockpit door.
Arizona: Border helicopters
Gov. Jan Brewer is asking President Barack Obama to reallocate National Guard helicopters from other states to help Arizona secure its border with Mexico. Brewer made the request in a letter to Obama dated Thursday and released Friday. She said Arizona only has four OH-58 Kiowa helicopters available for border missions because some choppers are deployed overseas and others are reserved for training missions. Brewer requests that additional helicopters be freed up from training missions or taken from other states and assigned to the southwestern border.
California: Sex offender flees
A Northern California sex offender with a history of parole violations cut off his ankle monitor and went on a two-day crime spree in which he tried to rob or kidnap several women and teenage girls at knifepoint in the San Diego area, authorities said. Leonard Scroggins, 32, was arrested at a park in National City on Wednesday after police spotted a minivan with a license plate number matching that provided by a purse-snatching victim. He remained jailed without bail on Friday.
From Herald news services
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