Air India Crash Blaze Reached Nearly 1,000°C; Birds, Dogs Too Faced Wrath

News18

a day ago

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According to fire officials, temperatures rose to 1,000 degrees Celcius in almost no time, and the 1.25 lakh litres of fuel inside the plane ignited the blaze.
Ahmedabad Plane Crash: The temperature in and around the crashed Air India plane site in Ahmedabad rose to around 1,000 degrees Celsius, which made the rescue operation extremely difficult and made nearly impossible for even dogs and birds in proximity of the area to escape in time.
A State Disaster Relief Force official while speaking to news agency PTI pointed to carcasses of dogs and birds in the vicinity to show the intensity of the crash.
According to fire officials, temperatures rose to 1,000 degrees Celcius in almost no time, and the 1.25 lakh litres of fuel inside the plane ignited the blaze. As the plane's fuel tank exploded, it created an inferno so big, that the temperature in and around the area rose to devastating levels, which made surviving the crash almost an impossible chance.
'There was 1.25 lakh litres of fuel inside the plane, and it caught fire so it was impossible to save anyone," Union Minister Amit Shah had told reporters yesterday.
The SDRF jawan said their personnel reached the hostel and residential quarters of doctors and staff members of the BJ Medical College, where the aircraft crashed, between 2 to 2:30 pm. Before that, locals had pulled out some people alive but their teams did not get anybody alive.
The SDRF personnel, who joined the force in 2017, said he has handled crisis situations before but has never seen such a disaster.
'We came here with PPE kits. But the temperature was so high that it made operations difficult. There were debris everywhere. So we had to clear the debris that were already simmering," he said.
Another SDRF official claimed that he lost the count of bodies he removed. 'It was so quick that even animals and birds got little time to escape," he said.
India witnessed one of its worst aviation tragedies on Thursday after a London-bound Air India plane, carrying 242 passengers and crew, including former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, crashed into a medical college complex shortly after taking off from the Ahmedabad airport.
In an early morning post on X at 12.41am on Friday, Air India confirmed that 241 people had perished in the crash. A police official told news agency PTI that 265 bodies had been brought to the hospital. The plane had crashed into the mess area of a medical college hostel, causing what appears to be at lease two dozen fatalities on the ground.
Officials said the flight lost altitude soon after taking off at around 1.30pm, before crashing into the residential quarters of BJ Medical College doctors in Meghaninagar area and going up in flames, sending plumes of thick black smoke spiralling up in the air.
One person survived the tragedy. The lone survivor was identified as Indian-origin British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh who was returning to the UK with his brother Ajay Kumar Rakesh, 45, who was in a different row inside the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.
The aircraft had 232 passengers and 10 crew members, including 169 Indians, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese and a Canadian, on board.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in a statement said the aircraft piloted by captain Sumeet Sabharwal with 8,200 hours of experience and first officer Clive Kundar with 1,100 hours of experience made a mayday call just before the crash.
(With inputs from agencies)