The crash Saturday of the Boeing 737-800, which overshot a hilltop runway in southern India and plunged over a cliff, killed 158 people. Only eight survived, many of them by jumping from the wreckage just before it burst into flames.

Ummer Farook Mohammed, a survivor burned on his face and hands, said it felt like a tire burst after the plane landed. "There was a loud bang, and the plane caught fire," he said.

"The plane shook with vibrations and split into two," said G.K. Pradeep, another survivor. He jumped out of the aircraft with four others, he said. Moments later, a large explosion set off a blaze that consumed the wreckage.

Recovery of the black boxes is crucial for determining what went wrong as the aircraft came in for landing after a flight from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Investigators used cutters to search for the black boxes in the twisted wreckage scattered along the hillside of thick grass and trees outside Mangalore's Bajpe airport.

Singh said 87 of the 158 bodies have been identified and handed over to relatives.

One of the victims was Mahendra Kulkarni, a telecommunications company director in the Emirates, who was flying to India with his ailing mother-in-law after she had slipped into coma, their cousin Nandit Banawalikar told The Associated Press.

Another victim, Mohammed Siddiqui, 27, boarded the flight in Dubai after family informed him of his father's sudden death and was rushing to attend the funeral, said Abdur Rehman, a friend who was taking his body home.

Another victim, Abdul Aziz, in his late 30s, was returning home after he lost his job in a Dubai-based catering company, said relative Abdul Majid.

"He was very concerned about his future because he had taken up this job only six months ago," Majid said.

Air India spokesman K. Swaminathan said all eight survivors were still hospitalized Sunday.

After the first few minutes of the crash, there were no more survivors to be found. Instead, scores of burned bodies were pulled from the blackened tangle of cables, twisted metal, charred trees and mud.

The plane was carrying 160 passengers - all Indian - and six crew members, Air India official Anup Srivastava said. The British pilot, who was of Serbian origin, and an Indian co-pilot were among the dead, officials said.

The crash was the deadliest in India since the November 1996 midair collision between a Saudi airliner and a Kazakh cargo plane near New Delhi, killing 349 people.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed condolences and promised compensation for families of the victims. Boeing was sending a team to aid in the investigation.

The crash happened about 6 am when the plane tried to land at Bajpe, about 19 miles (30 kilometers) outside Mangalore, and overshot the runway, said Srivastava, an official with the Indian national carrier.

Aviation experts said Bajpe's "tabletop" runway, which ends in a valley, makes a bad crash inevitable when a plane does not stop in time.

Associated Press

(China Daily 05/24/2010 page11)