More than 290 people were killed when an Air India plane bound for London with 242 people on board crashed minutes after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad yesterday, authorities said, in the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade.
The dead included people on the ground as the aircraft – headed for Gatwick Airport, south of the British capital – crashed on to a medical college hostel during lunch hour.
At least one passenger is known to have survived, police said, and the man told Indian media how he had heard a loud noise shortly after take-off.
“Approximately 294 have died. This includes some students as the plane crashed on the building where they were staying,” Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer, told Reuters.
She said police found one survivor who was in seat 11A, next to an emergency exit, adding that there could be more survivors in hospital.
“Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed,” 40-year-old Viswashkumar Ramesh told the Hindustan Times, which showed a boarding pass for seat 11A in that name online.
“It all happened so quickly,” he told the paper from his hospital bed.
“When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me,” he said. “Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital.”
He said that his brother, Ajay, was seated in a different row on the plane. “He was travelling with me and I can’t find him anymore. Please help me find him,” he said.
Ahmedabad police chief G S Malik said the bodies recovered could include both passengers and people killed on the ground. The dead included Vijay Rupani, the former chief minister of Gujarat state, of which Ahmedabad is the main city.
Relatives had been asked to give DNA samples to identify the dead, state health secretary Dhananjay Dwivedi told reporters.
Parts of the plane’s body were scattered around the smouldering building into which it crashed. The tail of the plane was stuck on top of the building.
The passengers included 217 adults, 11 children and two infants, a source told Reuters. Air India said 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian.
Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service.
It was the first crash for the Dreamliner, which began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. The plane that crashed yesterday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said.
Yesterday’s crash occurred just after the plane took off. TV channels showed the plane taking off over a residential area and then disappearing from the screen before a huge fireball could be seen rising into the sky from beyond the houses.
“My sister-in-law was going to London. Within an hour, I got news that the plane had crashed,” Poonam Patel, a relative of one of the passengers, said at the government hospital in Ahmedabad.
Ramila, the mother of a student at the medical college, said her son had gone to the hostel for his lunch break when the plane crashed. “My son is safe, and I have spoken to him. He jumped from the second floor, so he suffered some injuries,” she said.
According to air traffic control at Ahmedabad Airport, the aircraft departed at 1.39pm (0809 GMT). It gave a Mayday call, signalling an emergency, but thereafter there was no response from the aircraft.
US aerospace safety consultant Anthony Brickhouse said one problematic sign from videos of the aircraft was that the landing gear was down at a phase of flight when it would typically be up.
“If you didn’t know what was happening, you would think that plane was on approach to a runway,” Brickhouse said.
Boeing said it was in contact with Air India and working to gather more information.
Aircraft engine-maker GE Aerospace said that it would put a team together to go to India and analyse cockpit data, India’s CNBC TV18 reported.
The US National Transportation Safety Board said it would lead a team of US investigators travelling to India to help in the investigation.
Britain was working with Indian authorities to urgently establish the facts around the crash and to provide support to those involved, the country’s foreign office said.
“The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X. “It is heartbreaking beyond words.” Gujarat is Modi’s home state.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said images emerging of the crash were “devastating”. A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said King Charles was also being kept updated.
Ahmedabad Airport, which suspended all flight operations after the crash, said it was operational again but with limited flights. The airport is operated by India’s Adani Group conglomerate.
The formerly state-owned Air India was taken over by Indian conglomerate Tata Group in 2022, and merged with Vistara – a joint venture between the group and Singapore Airlines – in 2024.
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