The world awoke this morning to the horrifying news of the Air India crash. Flight AI171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, was travelling from Ahmedabad, India, to London Gatwick, United Kingdom, and crashed shortly after take-off at 13:38. To rub salt into the wound, the plane crashed into a building providing accommodation for doctors and near a major hospital.
On board were 242 passengers and crew: 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese nationals, and one Canadian. As of writing, there are 105 confirmed casualties and the recovery operation is undergoing, though the Ahmedabad police commissioner has sadly confirmed that, of those on the plane, there “appears to be no survivors“.
But, even within this tragedy, there is a ray of hope. The plane came very close to crashing into the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, and a direct strike on that busy building could have caused a huge number of deaths on the ground. In a very thin silver lining, it appears that the doctor’s accommodation the plane crashed into was relatively unoccupied at the time, as those living there were already at work.
#WATCH | Air India plane crash: "My son had gone to the hostel during lunch break, and the plane crashed there. My son is safe, and I have spoken to him. He jumped from the second floor, so he suffered some injuries,” says Ramila, who reached the civil hospital in Ahmedabad,… pic.twitter.com/MgMtvXBSou
— ANI (@ANI) June 12, 2025
For those actually inside the building, it must have been terrifying. Local woman Ramila appeared on ANI TV News to reveal that her son had returned to the accommodation to eat lunch there when the plane hit. He was forced to leap from a second-floor window and suffered injuries, though miraculously not serious ones. Ramila confirms she has spoken to him, indicating that while he’s presumably shaken up, he’s otherwise fine.
Questions must be answered
Scenes from resident student doctors mess where a flight crashes into a hostel building.#planecrash pic.twitter.com/dVenT0Yscx
— The Letter S (@WhyTheLetter_S) June 12, 2025
That’s about it for good news. Images from inside the doctor’s accommodation show that the side of the building took a direct hit, collapsing a wall, with pieces of the plane’s fuselage penetrating the interior. We can only hope that few people inside were in the vicinity of this location when the crash took place.
As the dust settles and the cleanup begins, investigators are hard at work searching for answers on what went wrong. Footage of the crash itself indicates the plane didn’t fully achieve lift, raising the prospect of a critical mechanical failure that’ll leave Boeing and its executives in the spotlight. Until then we can only be happy that Ramila’s son is alive, and pray we hear more stories of miraculous survival.
