THE INDIAN government launched a full-scale judicial inquiry last night after a Saudi jumbo jet and a Kazakh airliner were destroyed in a mid-air collision 50 miles south-west of New Delhi, killing all 351 passengers and crew aboard the two aircraft. An unknown number of people on the ground also perished.
It was the worst mid-air collisions in aviation history, and the third worst air disaster ever recorded.
Thousands of horrified villagers watched as Indian rescue workers battled flames in an effort to retrieve corpses from the wreckage spread over a four mile radius.
As Saudi crash experts made their way to India, the attention of investigators was focussed on possible communication problems between the Kazakh pilot and Delhi air traffic control.
Indian officials said the collision between the Saudi Boeing 747, carrying 312 people, and the Kazakh charter flight, with 39 aboard, occurred over flat farmlands in the northern state of Haryana. Although night had fallen, the skies were clear.
The Saudi airliner had left New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport bound for Dhahran and Jeddah only seven minutes before it crashed into the Kazkah plane. The chatter flight, an Ilyushin-76, was arriving from Shymkent in Kazakhstan.
Mr H. S. Kholla, India's director of civil aviation, said air traffic controllers had ordered the Saudi plane to climb to 14,000 feet, and the Kazakh jetliner to descend to 15,000 when disaster struck.
Several people saw the crash, including the pilots of a US Air Force plane. The plane was carrying supplies to the US embassy in New Delhi.
"It seemed as if a ball of fire was flying in the sky and then it fell down," said Pankaj Lohan, who lives nearby. "And then there was a loud noise like thunder."
Indian air traffic controllers said the crash could be due to equipment failure, with one of the aircraft deviating from its assigned height. However, they said it was very rare for a Boeing, which is equipped with the latest navigational aids, to make a mistake during take-off.
The real rescue work will start after daybreak today. Police have cordoned off the crash site and posted guards over the belongings of the dead.
As many as 231 passengers aboard the Saudi airliner were Indian labourers, returning to their jobs after spending the festive season with friends and family in India. Yesterday was Diwali, normally the most joyous day of the Hindu calendar.