An Air India passenger plane bound for London with more than 240 people on board crashed Thursday in India’s northwestern city of Ahmedabad, and there were no known survivors, officials said, APA reports citing Associated Press.
Black smoke billowed from the site where the plane went down in a populated area near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city of more than 5 million and the capital of Gujarat.
Firefighters doused the smoking wreckage of the plane, which would have been fully loaded with fuel shortly after takeoff, and adjacent multistory buildings with water. Many charred bodies lay on the ground and one was carried away on a stretcher by first responders.
“The scenes emerging of a London-bound plane carrying many British nationals crashing in the Indian city of Ahmedabad are devastating,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement.
Indian television news channels reported that the plane crashed on top of the dining area of a medical college hostel and visuals showed a portion of the aircraft atop the building. It was unclear if any medical students were present inside the building at the time of the crash.
“It appears there are no survivors in the plane crash,” Police Commissioner G.S. Malik told The Associated Press,
“As the plane has fallen in a residential area which also had offices, some locals would have also died,” he added. “Exact figures on casualties are being ascertained.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the crash “heartbreaking beyond words.”
“In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected,” he said in a social media post.
The airline said the Gatwick Airport-bound flight was carrying 242 passengers and crew. Of those, Air India said there were 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.
***
15:06
At least 120 people have died in a plane crash in India, APA reports citing the Hindustan Times.
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14:17
Air India confirms that flight AI171, from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, was involved in an accident today after take-off, APA reports.
The flight, which departed from Ahmedabad at 1338 hrs, was carrying 242 passengers and crew members on board the Boeing 787-8 aircraft. Of these, 169 are Indian nationals, 53 are British nationals, 1 Canadian national, and 7 Portuguese nationals.
The injured are being taken to the nearest hospitals.
Air India is giving its full cooperation to the authorities investigating this incident.
***13:02
An Air India plane headed to London with 242 people on board crashed minutes after taking off from India's western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, the airline and police said, without specifying whether there were any fatalities, APA reports citing Reuters.
The plane was headed to Gatwick airport in the UK, Air India said, while police officers said it crashed in a civilian area near the airport.
Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service.
"At this moment, we are ascertaining the details and will share further updates," Air India said on X.
The crash occurred when the aircraft was taking off, television channels reported. One channel showed the plane taking off over a residential area and then disappearing from the screen before a huge cloud of fire rising into the sky from beyond the houses.
Visuals also showed debris on fire, with thick black smoke rising up into the sky near the airport.
They also showed visuals of people being moved in stretchers and being taken away in ambulances.
According to air traffic control at Ahmedabad airport, the aircraft departed at 1.39 p.m. (0809 GMT) from runway 23. It gave a "Mayday" call, signalling an emergency, but thereafter no there was no response from the aircraft.
Flightradar24 also said that it received the last signal from the aircraft seconds after it took off.
"The aircraft involved is a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with registration VT-ANB," it said.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The last fatal plane crash in India involved Air India Express, the airline's low-cost arm.
The airline's Boeing-737 overshot a "table-top" runway at Kozhikode International Airport in southern India in 2020. The plane skidded off the runway, plunging into a valley and crashing nose-first into the ground.
Twenty-one people were killed in that crash.
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