When the Air India Express plane fell off the runway and broke into pieces on Friday evening at the Kozhikode airport in Kerala, the first to see the crash were the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel manning the airport boundary. They were also the first to reach the spot, to the frightening sight of screaming passengers, wailing children and pieces of the plane's fuselage scattered all over a slope. "Our personnel could see the crash from the elevated perimeter posts, so we were the first responders," CISF special Director General MA Ganapathy told NDTV.
