An Air India plane bound for London crashed in a residential area of Ahmedabad shortly after takeoff Thursday, killing 241 people on board, the airline said. One passenger who was thrown from the plane survived.
At least five medical students in a college hostel were killed when the plane hit the building and burst into flames, according to a medical association officer.
“Most of the bodies have been charred beyond recognition,” said Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer in the city in northwestern India.
Indian Home Minister Amit Shah confirmed that he met the sole survivor at the hospital. A doctor said he had examined the survivor, whom he identified as Vishwashkumar Ramesh.
“He was disoriented with multiple injuries all over his body,” Dr. Dhaval Gameti told The Associated Press. “But he seems to be out of danger.”
Another medic said Ramesh told him that immediately after the plane took off, it began descending and suddenly split in two, throwing him out before a loud explosion.
Black smoke billowed from the site where the plane crashed near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city of more than 5 million and the capital of Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state.
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. Charred bodies lay on the ground and parts of the fuselage were scattered around the site. Indian army teams were assisting civil authorities to clear debris and help treat the injured.
A video on social media showed the jet slowly descending as if it were landing. As soon as it disappeared from view behind rows of houses, a giant fireball filled the sky. The AP was able to verify the video by matching up the flight path of the plane from the runway with the crash site and the nearby residential area.
At the crash site, the tail cone of the aircraft with damaged stabilizer fins still attached was lodged near the top of one of the buildings.
Others may be buried in debris
In a social media post, Modi called the crash “heartbreaking beyond words” and said “my thoughts are with everyone affected.”
Sambit Patra, a lawmaker from Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said Gujarat’s former chief minister, Vijay Rupani, was among the dead.
Divyansh Singh, vice president of the Federation of All India Medical Association, said at least five students from the medical college were killed on the ground and 50 others were injured. Singh said some of them were in critical condition and many people are “feared buried in the debris.”
Air India confirmed in a statement posted on X that 229 passengers and 12 crew members were killed in the crash. The only survivor was a British national of Indian origin. The flight bound for London Gatwick Airport had 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian passenger aboard.
“Our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of all those affected, their families and loved ones,” the airline said.
The first crash of a Boeing 787
This is the first crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. Boeing said it was “working to gather more information.”
India’s aviation regulatory body said the aircraft gave a mayday call, signaling an emergency, but then did not respond to the calls made by the airport traffic control.
Aviation consultant John M. Cox, the CEO of Safety Operating Systems, told the AP from Los Angeles that while the first images of the crash were poor, it appeared the aircraft had its nose up and was not climbing, which is one of the things that investigators would look at.
“The 787 has very extensive flight data monitoring — the parameters on the flight data recorder are in the thousands — so once we get that recorder, they’ll be able to know pretty quickly what happened,” he said.
The wide-body, twin-engine aircraft was introduced in 2009, and more than 1,000 have been delivered to dozens of airlines, according to the flightradar24 website.
UK promises support
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government was in constant contact with Indian authorities and encouraged loved ones of passengers on the Air India flight to contact the foreign office.
“Our hearts and our thoughts are absolutely with the friends and families of all those affected who are going to be absolutely devastated by this awful news,” Starmer said.
British Cabinet minister Lucy Powell said the government will provide “all the support that it can” to those affected by the crash.
Britain has very close ties with India. There were nearly 1.9 million people in the country of Indian descent, according to the 2021 U.K. census.
Condolences also poured in from King Charles III, who said he and his wife, Queen Camilla, were “desperately shocked” by the crash.
“Our special prayers and deepest possible sympathy are with the families and friends of all those affected by this appallingly tragic incident across so many nations,” he said in a statement.
Previous air disasters in India
The last major passenger plane crash in India was in 2020, when an Air India Express Boeing-737 skidded off a hilltop runway in southern India, killing 21 people.
The worst air disaster in India was on Nov. 12, 1996, when a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight collided midair with a Kazakhstan Airlines Flight near Charki Dadri in Haryana state, killing all 349 on board the two planes.
Boeing has been in recovery mode for more than six years after Lion Air Flight 610, a Boeing 737 Max 8, plunged into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Five months later, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 Max 8, crashed after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killing 157 passengers and crew members.
Shares of Boeing Co. tumbled nearly 9% before trading opened in the U.S.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
