There were no foreigners on board an Indian passenger plane, which crashed early Saturday morning in southern India, killing about 160 passengers and crew members, an official at the Dubai office of Air India told Xinhua.

All the passengers were Indians, the official told Xinhua by phone.

Eight people survived the crash, which occurred when the Air India Express aircraft overshot a runway during landing and crashed near Mangalore airport in the southern Indian state of Karnataka early Saturday morning.

Air India Express is the budget airliner of the state-run carrier Air India.

The Boeing 737-800 plane had departed from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, with 166 people on board.

India's air safety record has been good in the past decade despite a number of private airlines operating in the skies.

The last major plane crash happened in the city of Patna in July 2000, when an Alliance Air flight crashed, killing at least 60 people.