One person survived and 241 were killed when an Air India flight crashed shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad airport in western India, authorities say.
The Boeing 787-8 aircraft bound for London Gatwick airport was carrying 242 passengers and crew when it came down on Thursday in a residential area, crashing into a medical college hostel outside the airport during lunch hour.
Air India said in a statement that 241 people on board the plane were confirmed to have died.
“Air India offers its deepest condolences to the families of the deceased. Our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of all those affected, their families and loved ones,” the airline wrote on social media.
At least one person survived the crash, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah said. A senior police officer, Vidhi Chaudhary, told the Reuters news agency that the survivor, named as Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, had escaped from an emergency exit.
Police Commissioner GS Malik was quoted as saying that Ramesh was being treated in hospital.
Earlier, Malik told Reuters that 204 bodies had been recovered from the crash site. He said the bodies recovered could include both passengers and people killed on the ground.
Footage showed smoke billowing from the crash site. Parts of the plane’s body were scattered around the building into which it crashed, photographs and videos from the area showed. The tail of the plane was stuck on top of the building.
Mayday
According to air traffic control at Ahmedabad’s airport, the aircraft gave a mayday call, signalling an emergency, but after that, there was no response, Reuters reported.
The aviation-tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, a wide-body, twin-engined plane that is one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who hails from the state of Gujarat where the crash occurred, said he was “stunned and saddened” by the disaster.
“It is heartbreaking beyond words,” Modi posted on X. “In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected by it.”
Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said he was “shocked and devastated” by the crash and his “thoughts and prayers are with all those on board and their families”.
“Rescue teams have been mobilised, and all efforts are being made to ensure medical aid and relief support are being rushed to the site,” he wrote on X.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement that the scenes at the crash site were “devastating”.
The United Kingdom was working with Indian authorities to urgently establish the facts around the crash and to support those affected, the Foreign Office in London said in a statement.
The UK government’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said it would send a “multidisciplinary investigation team” to support the Indian-led inquiry into the causes of the crash.
According to the Aviation Safety Network database, this was the first recorded crash of a Boeing 787 aircraft.
Alex Macheras, an aviation analyst, told Al Jazeera that the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner has a good safety record.
“The 787 has been in service for 15 years. This is a mid- to long-haul passenger aircraft, one of the latest from Boeing in terms of the development and the introduction of carbon-fibre aircraft,” he said.
“In fact, in its 15 years of commercial service globally, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner has never been involved in a crash or a hull loss or a fatal accident.”
The last fatal plane crash in India was in 2020 and involved an aircraft from Air India Express, the carrier’s low-cost arm. Twenty-one people were killed when the aircraft overshot a runway at Kozhikode international airport in southern India.
