Over 290 dead in Air India Plane Crash
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 Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, 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, said. 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. Ahmedabad police chief GS 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.The passengers included 217 adults, 11 children and two infants, a source said. 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. (Agencies) page 4
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Al Jazeera
14 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Investigators search Air India crash site as Modi meets lone survivor
Investigators and rescue teams are searching the site of one of India's worst aviation disasters, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met with the lone surviving passenger, a day after an Air India flight fell from the sky and killed 241 people on the plane and multiple people on the ground. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, en route from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick Airport with 242 people on board, went down shortly after takeoff on Thursday, striking a medical college hostel in the western Indian city. One of the plane's black boxes has been found, local media reported, and operations on Friday were focused on locating missing people and recovering aircraft fragments and the remaining black box. An official from the National Disaster Response Force said it deployed seven teams to the crash site and they have recovered 81 bodies so far. The crash caused extensive damage and left bodies scattered both inside the aircraft and among buildings at the site. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the scene in his home state of Gujarat on Friday, meeting with rescue officials and some of the injured in hospital. 'The scene of devastation is saddening,' he posted on X. Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau launched an investigation into the incident. Medics are conducting DNA tests to identify those killed, said the president of the Federation of All India Medical Association, Akshay Dongardiv. Meanwhile, grieving families gathered outside the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad. Two doctors at the hospital said the bodies of four medical students killed on the ground were released to their families. They said at least 30 injured students were admitted to the hospital and at least four were in critical condition. Witnesses described hearing a blast on Thursday before dark smoke engulfed the area. 'We were at home and heard a massive sound. It appeared like a big blast,' the Reuters news agency quoted 63-year-old resident Nitin Joshi as saying. Footage from CCTV cameras captured a fireball rising above the crash site shortly after the Dreamliner took off. Parts of the fuselage were found scattered across the hostel complex, and the aircraft's tail was lodged in the building's roof. Boeing said it was ready to send experts to assist in the investigation, which Air India warned would take time. The crash marks the first fatal accident involving a Dreamliner since the aircraft began commercial service in 2011. Air India CEO Campbell Wilson arrived in Ahmedabad early on Friday. The sole survivor of the crash was seen in television footage meeting Modi at the government hospital where he was being treated for burns and other injuries. Viswashkumar Ramesh told India's national broadcaster he still could not believe he is alive. He said the aircraft seemed to become stuck immediately after takeoff. He said the lights came on and right after that, the plane accelerated but seemed unable to gain height before it crashed. He said the side of the plane where he was seated fell onto the ground floor of a building and there was space for him to escape after the door broke open. He unfastened his seatbelt and forced himself out of the plane. 'When I opened my eyes, I realised I was alive,' he said. The crash claimed the life of Vijay Rupani, Gujarat's former chief minister. Police said most passengers were still strapped in their seats when found. 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 were Portuguese and one was Canadian.
Al Jazeera
18 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
How deadly Air India crash shattered dreams, wiped out entire families
Ahmedabad, India — For the Patel family, April was a month of answered prayers. The news arrived in a simple email: their son, Sahil Patel, had won a visa lottery. He was one of 3,000 Indians chosen by a random ballot for a coveted two-year United Kingdom work visa, under the British government's India Young Professionals Scheme. For the 25-year-old from a middle-class family, it was a pathway from a modest home in Sarod village, 150km (93 miles) from Ahmedabad, the biggest city in the western Indian state of Gujarat, to a new life in London. For his family, the visa was the culmination of every prayer, a chance for the social mobility they had worked their whole lives for. But less than two months later, that excitement has turned to grief: Sahil was one of the 241 people on Air India 171 who died when the plane crashed into a medical college's hostel just outside Ahmedabad airport on Thursday, June 12, seconds after taking off. Only one passenger survived India's deadliest aviation disaster in more than three decades. Dozens of people on the ground were killed, including several students at BJ Medical College, when the plane erupted into a ball of fire after crashing into their mess. Several others were injured, many of them still in critical care. Those killed on board include young students on their way to London on scholarships, a family returning home from a wedding in Gujarat, another that was visiting India for Eid, and those like Sahil whose families believed they had won the luck of a lifetime. In the mess hall at Gujarat's oldest medical school, Rakesh Deora was finishing his lunch along with more than 70 other medical students. From a small town in Bhavnagar in southeastern Gujarat, Deora was in the second year of his undergraduate studies – but, friends and family recalled, did not like wearing his white coat. When the plane struck the building, he was killed by the falling debris. In the chaos that followed, many of the bodies – from the plane and on the ground – were charred beyond recognition. Deora's face was still recognisable when his family saw his body. At the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, five hours after the crash, another family rushed in. Irfan, 22, was an Air India cabin crew member, his uniform a symbol of pride for his family. They rushed to the morgue, unaware of what they were about to face. When an official showed Irfan's father his son's body – his face still recognisable – the man's composure shattered. He collapsed against a wall, his voice a raw lament to God. 'I have been religious my whole life,' he cried, his words echoing in the sterile hallway. 'I gave to charity, I taught my son character … Why this punishment upon him? Why my child?' Beside him, Irfan's mother refused to believe that her son was dead. 'No!' she screamed at anyone who came near. 'He promised he would see me when he got back. You're lying. It's not him.' For another family, recognition came not from a face, but from a small, gold pendant. It was a gift from a husband to his wife, Syed Nafisa Bano, and it was the only way to identify her. Nafisa was one of four members of the Syed family on board, including her husband Syed Inayat Ali, and their two young children, Taskin Ali and Waqee Ali. They had been buzzing with excitement, talking about their return to London after spending a wonderful two months in India celebrating Eid al-Adha with their relatives. On Thursday, their family in Gujarat huddled together in the hospital corridor in mourning, the laughter they had shared consigned to memories. Just 500 metres from the main crash site, rickshaw driver Rajesh Patel was waiting for his next customer. The 50-year-old was the sole earner for his family. He wasn't struck by debris, but by the explosion's brutal heat, which engulfed him in flames. He now lies in a critical care unit, fighting for his life. His wife sits outside the room, her hands clasped in prayer. In the narrow lanes of the Meghaninagar neighbourhood near the crash site, Tara Ben had just finished her morning chores and was lying down for a rest. The sudden, deafening roar that shook her home's tin roof sounded like a gas cylinder explosion, a familiar danger in the densely packed neighbourhood. But the screams from outside that followed told her this was different. 'Arey, aa to aeroplane chhe! Plan tooti gayo! [Oh, it's an aeroplane! It's a plane crash!]' a man shrieked in Gujarati; his voice laced with a terror she had never heard before. Tara Ben ran out into the chaos. The air was thick with smoke and a smell she couldn't place – acrid and metallic. As she joined the crowd rushing to view the crash site, a cold dread washed over her – a mix of gratitude and guilt. It wasn't just for the victims, but for her own community. She looked back at the maze of makeshift homes in her neighbourhood, where hundreds of families lived stacked one upon another. 'If it had fallen here,' she later said, her voice barely a whisper, 'there would be no one left to count the bodies. God saved us, but he took so many others.' Veteran rescue worker Tofiq Mansuri has seen tragedy many times before, but nothing had prepared him for this, he said. For four hours, from mid-afternoon until the sun began to set, he and his team worked in the shadow of the smouldering wreckage to recover the dead with dignity. 'The morale was high at first,' Mansuri recalled, his gaze distant, his face etched with exhaustion. 'You go into a mode. You are there to do a job. You focus on the task.' He described lifting body bag after body bag into the ambulances. But then, they found her. A small child, no more than two or three years old, her tiny body charred by the inferno. In that moment, the professional wall Mansuri had built to allow himself to deal with the dead, crumbled. 'We are trained for this, but how can you train for that?' he asked, his voice breaking for the first time. 'To see a little girl … a baby … it just broke us. The spirits were gone. We were just men, carrying a child who would never go home.' Mansuri knows the sight will stay with him. 'I won't be able to sleep for many nights,' he said, shaking his head. By 7pm, five hours after the crash, ambulances were arriving at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital in a grim procession, not with sirens blaring, but in a near-silent parade of the dead. Inside the hospital, a wave of anguish rippled through the crowd each time the doors of the morgue swung open. In one corner, a woman's voice rose above the din, a sharp, piercing cry of accusation. 'Air India killed him!' she screamed. 'Air India killed my only son!' Then she collapsed into a heap on the cold floor. No one rushed to help; they simply watched, everyone struggling with their own grief. Dozens of families waited – for a name to be called, for a familiar face on a list, for a piece of information that might anchor them amid a disorienting nightmare. They huddled in small, broken circles, strangers united by a singular, unbearable fate. Some were called into small, sterile rooms to give DNA samples to help identify their dead relatives. Then an official's announcement cut through the air: identified remains would only be released after 72 hours, after post-mortem procedures. As the night deepened, some relatives, exhausted and emotionally spent, began their journey home, leaving one or two family members behind to keep vigil. But many refused to leave. They sat on the floor, their backs against the wall, their eyes vacant. While some families still cling to the fragile hope of survival, such as in the case of Rajesh Patel, the rickshaw driver, others are grappling with the grief differently. Away from the hospital's frantic chaos, Sahil Patel's father Salim Ibrahim was away in his village, calm and composed. Over the telephone, his voice did not break but remained chillingly calm, his grief masked by a single practical question. 'Will they give him back to us in a closed box?' he asked. 'I just … I cannot bear for anyone to see him like that. I want him to be brought home with dignity.' The visa that promised a new world to Sahil is now a worthless piece of paper. The plane was a Dreamliner, an aircraft named for the very thing it was meant to carry. The dream of London has dissolved into a nightmare in a morgue. And in the end, all a father can ask for his son is the mercy of a closed lid.
Qatar Tribune
a day ago
- Qatar Tribune
There was a loud noise and then the plane crashed: Sole survivor
A British man has walked away from the wreckage of the Air India crash in an extraordinary tale of survival. Vishwashkumar Ramesh was in seat 11A on the London-bound Boeing 787-8 flight when it crashed shortly after take off in Ahmedabad, western India. Viswashkumar, 40, has spoken to Indian media. 'Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed,' he 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. (Agencies)
