The Air India Express flight IX-812 aircraft that crashed at Mangalore airport early today on arrival from Dubai, killing about 150 people, was piloted by Z Glucia, a Serbian national, with first officer Capt S S Ahluwalia as his co-pilot, according to reports. Neither of them survived the crash.

The airport at Bajpe, about 30 km from Mangalore, has a table-top runway located on a hill top, which is notoriously difficult to land on. It demands pin-point accuracy with no room for error while landing, as the airspace over the city and its vicinity is among the most turbulent in the country. A slight drizzle at 6.30 am, when the disaster occurred, reduced visibility and made matters worse.

Reports say the pilot did not report any malfunction to Airport Traffic Control (ATC), before landing. Glucia was an experienced pilot and familiar with the Mangalore terrain, as he had been on this route several times before. It was only after landing that things went horribly wrong. The plane overshot the runway, went straight into the forested gorge and caught fire.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that there may have been a tyre burst, which made it difficult for the pilot to bring the aircraft to a halt.

Speaking to NDTV, Air Marshal Denzil Keelor said there is a structural flaw at the Mangalore airport because of which there was not enough safe area for the pilot to go into after he lost control of the aircraft. He added that table-top runway did not provide an overshoot area of at least a 1000 yards, in the absence of which any mistake can prove deadly.

The directorate general for civil aviation (DGCA) has rushed a team to investigate matters. The primary concern is to retrieve the black box that will give investigators to reconstruct the last moments in the cockpit.

A grim looking Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa told reporters about three hours after the disaster that the Boeing 737 was carrying over 160 people and "survivors were unlikely".

"Except for five or six people who were rescued, we fear the rest of the passengers and crew may not have survived." he told reporters in Bangalore, the state capital, before leaving for the crash site. "It is a grave tragedy."

The plane was carrying 163 passengers and six crew members. The passengers included four infants.

Villagers from the neighbourhood were among the first to rush to the gorge as the plane crashed and broke into several pieces with a deafening roar and sending huge flames leaping into the sky. Firemen and police personnel from the airport quickly began rescue operations, only to come across ghastly scenes of mangled bodies strewn over a large area. Some of the charred bodies still had the seat belts on.

About 25 ambulances and over 20 fire tenders were soon involved in the frantic rescue operation. A large crowd also gathered, including many rushing all the way from the airport. Managalore airport manager Peter Abrahim said there were initial difficulties in reaching the accident site.

Air India spokesman K Swaminathan said Flight IX 812 overshot the runway while landing. He gave no further details.

The rescue operations were hit for an hour as the drizzle turned into heavy rains, with parts of the plane having rolled into ravines near the airport.

"It is a tragic incident," Karnataka Home Minister VS Acharyal said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condoled the loss of lives in the air crash at the Mangalore airport on Saturday and ordered an ex gratia payment of Rs200,000 for the families of the dead and Rs50,000 for the injured.

He also postponed an event scheduled at his official residence Saturday evening to celebrate his government's one year in office during its second tenure.

A survivor told CNN-IBN said that when the flight landed at the Mangalore airport there was a lot of vibration and the plane broke into two.

"The plane broke into two and we jumped off the plane. There were five survivors in total. I don't know who the other survivors are. As soon as the plane landed, within seconds this happened," said Pradeep, one of the survivors.