AHMEDABAD: An Air India plane crashed on Thursday (Jun 12) in India’s western city of Ahmedabad with 242 on board.
Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, bound for London Gatwick crashed shortly after take-off.
“It appears there are no survivors in the plane crash,” Police Commissioner GS Malik told The Associated Press.
As the plane went down in a residential area near the airport, casualties on the ground are expected, he added.
“The building on which it has crashed is a doctors’ hostel … we have cleared almost 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the area and will clear the rest soon,” a senior police officer told reporters.
India’s CNN News-18 TV channel said the plane crashed on top of the dining area of the state-run BJ Medical College hostel, killing many medical students as well. It showed a visual of a portion of the aircraft perched atop the building.
Rescue workers said that at least 30 to 35 bodies had been recovered from the site and that more people were trapped.
The passengers included 217 adults, 11 children and two infants a source told Reuters. Of them, 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian, Air India said.
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 on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said.
“At this moment, we are ascertaining the details and will share further updates,” Air India said on X. “The injured are being taken to the nearest hospitals.”
CRASH JUST AFTER TAKE-OFF
The crash occurred just after the plane took off, television channels reported. One channel showed the plane taking off over a residential area and then disappearing from the screen before a huge jet of fire can be seen 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 people being moved in stretchers and being taken away in ambulances.
“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, told news agency ANI at the government hospital in Ahmedabad.
Ramila, the mother of a student at the medical college, told ANI 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 1.39 pm local time from runway 23. It gave a “Mayday” call, signalling an emergency, but thereafter there was no response from the aircraft.
Flightradar24 also said that it received the last signal from the aircraft seconds after it took off.
Source: CNA
