KEY POINTS
- Flight was bound for London’s Gatwick Airport
- Police say plane crashed on doctors’ hostel
- More than 290 dead, police say
- Local police confirm one passenger survived
- First fatal crash of Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner
AHMEDABAD, India: More than 290 people, including 241 passengers, were killed when an Air India plane bound for London with 242 people on board crashed onto a medical college hostel minutes after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, Reuters reported while citing a police officer.
The dead included people on the ground as the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner – headed for Gatwick Airport, south of the British capital – crashed onto a medical college hostel during lunch hour.
Local police confirmed they found one survivor in seat 11A of the flight.
Local media reported that the survivor is a British national named Vishwash Kumar Ramesh. The 40-year-old is said to have sustained minor injuries and walked away from the crash unaided.
Bodies were being recovered from the crash site, with the back of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner hanging over the edge of the building it struck around lunchtime.
According to Hindustan Times, he said: “Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly.”
“The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us. It is heart-breaking beyond words,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after Air India’s flight 171 crashed following take-off.
The bodies of passengers and victims on the ground were among 204 recovered so far, city police commissioner GS Malik said, while medics were treating dozens who were injured in the city.
The total fatality count remains unclear as rescuers work through the charred wreckage.
While everyone aboard the flight was initially feared killed, state health official Dhananjay Dwivedi said “one survivor is confirmed” and had been hospitalised.
“One half of the plane crashed into the residential building where doctors lived with their families,” said Krishna, a doctor who did not give his full name.
“The nose and front wheel landed on the canteen building where students were having lunch,” he said.
Krishna said he saw “about 15 to 20 burnt bodies”, while he and his colleagues rescued around 15 students.
India’s civil aviation authority said there were 242 people aboard, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew.
Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and a Canadian on board the flight bound for London’s Gatwick airport.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the scenes from the crash were “devastating”, while the country’s King Charles III said he was “desperately shocked”.
Plane crashes immediately after take-off
The plane issued a mayday call and “crashed immediately after take-off”, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said.
Ahmedabad, the main city of India’s Gujarat state, is home to around eight million people and the busy airport is surrounded by densely packed residential areas.
“When we reached the spot there were several bodies lying around and firefighters were dousing the flames,” resident Poonam Patni said as quoted by AFP.
“Many of the bodies were burned,” she said.
The plane came down in an area between a hospital and the city’s Ghoda Camp neighbourhood.
The airport was shut, with all flights “suspended until further notice”, its operator said.
US planemaker Boeing said it was in touch with Air India and stood “ready to support them” over the incident, which a source close to the case said was the first crash for a 787 Dreamliner.
The UK and US air accident investigation agencies announced they were each dispatching teams to support their Indian counterparts.
The airline’s chairman, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, said an emergency centre had been set up with a support team for families seeking information.
Tata Group, owners of Air India, offered financial aid of 10 million rupees ($117,000) to “the families of each person who has lost their life in this tragedy”, as well as promising to cover the medical expenses of those injured.
Deadly plane crashes in India
India has suffered a series of fatal air crashes, including a 1996 disaster when two jets collided mid-air over New Delhi, killing nearly 350 people.
In 2010, an Air India Express jet crashed and burst into flames at Mangalore airport in southwest India, killing 158 of the 166 passengers and crew on board.
Experts said it was too early to speculate on what may have caused Thursday’s crash.
“It is very unlikely that the plane was overweight or carrying too much fuel,” said Jason Knight, senior lecturer in fluid mechanics at the University of Portsmouth.
“The aircraft is designed to be able to fly on one engine, so the most likely cause of the crash is a double engine failure. The most likely cause of a double engine failure is a bird strike.” – Agencies
