
'It was flying too low, wanted to show my friends': Teen who casually filmed Air India crash, thought plane would land
NEW DELHI: Seventeen-year-old Aryan Ansari was on the terrace of a building near Ahmedabad airport, casually filming planes to show his friends. What he ended up recording was the moment Air India's Dreamliner 787-8 crashed and burst into flames, footage that has since gone viral across the country.
'I came here on June 12. The plane was passing from very close, so I thought of shooting a video to show to my friends,' Aryan recalled. 'The plane went downwards, and I thought it was going to land as the airport was nearby. But then flames started shooting up, I saw that it had exploded. I was scared. I showed the video to my sister. I also told my father about it.'
Aryan was attempting to capture a regular flight in action, unaware that he would end up filming one of the deadliest aviation accidents in recent memory.
Flight AI 171, bound for London, crashed shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad airport on the afternoon of June 12. Of the 242 people on board, only one person survived. Among the deceased was former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani.
Aryan's video, which shows the aircraft descending rapidly and then engulfed in flames, is being widely circulated and has become a crucial record of the final moments of the ill-fated flight.
Meanwhile, authorities have begun the grim task of identifying the charred remains of the victims. Ahmedabad Civil Hospital is relying on DNA and blood samples provided by relatives to match and release the bodies.
'The bodies of 31 DNAs have been matched. 12 bodies have been handed over to their respective family members,' said Dr Rajnish Patel, Additional Medical Superintendent of the hospital. 'We are waiting for others to come and collect the remains of their relatives.'

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Hindustan Times
27 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
DNA profiling for Air India crash victims may end today, kin await results
The painstaking process of DNA profiling of all the victims of the Air India Dreamliner crash is expected to finish by Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, a top doctor said on Monday, potentially exacerbating the wait of scores of relatives who continue to camp in Ahmedabad. Also Read: DNA verification completed for 119 victims in Air India plane crash A group of 54 experts across Forensic Science Laboratories in Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, and Rajkot are working round-the-clock to carry out profiling and matching tests. But there is still no final word on the official toll on what is India's worst single-aircraft tragedy that killed all but one of the 242 on board, and at least 30in the hostel building the AI-171 jet rammed into, or in the neighbourhood. Dr Rakesh Joshi, superintendent of Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, said that 119 DNA samples have matched with the victims of the crash. Using these, 76 bodies have been handed over to families. Another eight bodies, which didn't require DNA sampling, were returned on Friday. Also Read: Did double engine failure cause the Air India plane crash? PIB fact-checks At least 14 more bodies will be returned by Tuesday morning. 'The DNA profiling all the victims will be completed by either Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning,' Joshi said. 'We are trying our best to finish this process as soon as possible.' One of the people identified by DNA profiling was former chief minister Vijay Rupani, whose final rites were conducted in Rajkot on Monday. Also Read: New video shows lone survivor walking away as crashed plane turns into fireball The Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick crashed 33 seconds after taking off on Thursday afternoon and rammed into the medical college hostel, marking the worst air tragedy in the country in three decades. Thick plumes of black smoke billowed from the debris of AI-171 at the crash site roughly 3km from the Ahmedabad airport premises. The aircraft – which carried almost a full load of 125,000 litres of fuel – entered a slow descent shortly after taking off at 1.38pm, with its landing gear still extended before exploding into a huge fireball upon impact. The twin-engine plane had reached an altitude of 625 feet (190.5 meters) at a speed of 174 knots, according to data from Flightradar24. Since Thursday, scores of relatives have trooped into Ahmedabad, their wait turning from hours into days as authorities struggled to identify charred bodies and recover samples. At Dr Pratik Joshi's home in Ahmedabad, for example, 50-60 relatives from Rajasthan's Banswara are anxiously awaiting DNA confirmation to claim the remains of Pratik, 41, his wife Dr. Komi Vyas, and their children — Miraya, 8, and twins Nakul and Pradyut, 5. 'We are caught in a nightmare, unable to sleep or stay awake,' said Anil Vyas, Komi's father. 'They've confirmed Pratik' identity, but we're still waiting for the others. Nothing is in our hands…Hospital authorities have promised answers by tomorrow. The wait gets heavier with time,' he told HT. Dr. Pratik Joshi, a 41-year-old radiologist, was relocating his family from India to London for a new chapter. The family had captured their joy in a selfie on board, moments before the crash. Other families grew more impatient. 'They told us 72 hours. It has been four days now. We haven't got a call from the hospital authorities yet. I don't know when I will get to see the body of my brother and his family members so we can lay them to rest,' said Imtiyaz Ali, whose brother Javed Ali, sister-in-law Mariyam, and their children Aman Ali and Zayn Ali were killed in the crash. `Javed is of Indian origin and Mariyam is of Pakistani origin. 'The doctors explained to me that through DNA matching of my blood sample, they can confirm the DNA sample of my brother Javed. Then through his DNA, they can confirm the DNA samples of his two children,' Imtiyaz said. Finally, the confirmed samples of the two children would be used to identify Mariyam. Dr Joshi urged the grief-stricken kin of the victims to not panic, but acknowledged that complaints were mounting. 'Some are complaining that the results have not come even after 72 hours. I appeal to them not to panic because this is a very important process with legal implications. We will call them as soon as results arrive,' he said. He underlined that delays were on various accounts. 'Two foreign nationals will arrive on Tuesday for DNA testing, …11 families who have lost multiple relatives in crash have received one body but are still awaiting the release of others…18 other families, whose loved ones' DNA has been matched, have yet to inform authorities when they will claim the remains for final rites,' he said. Rohit Patel from Nadiad shared that hospital authorities confirmed a DNA match for his brother Anil Patel's daughter-in-law, Puja Patel, but added that he was still awaiting results for HIS WHO Harshit Patel. 'We're heartbroken and unsure what to do next. We've asked them to release both bodies together so we can perform their final rites,' he said. Doctors cautioned that the nature of the remains – many of the bodies are charred due to the intense heat of the fire that accompanied the crash – is making extraction of viable DNA challenging. A doctor from Ahmedabad's Civil Hospital told HT that often samples of multiple relatives needed to strengthen statistical certainty, especially when the DNA is degraded. 'We may need to test several relatives—parents, siblings, children—and if the body is dismembered, all recovered parts are tested to confirm they belong to the same individual before release,' the doctor said, requesting anonymity. Dr. Saumil P. Merchant, professor and head of forensic medicine at Narendra Modi Medical College, said that under normal conditions, a DNA report takes about three months due to the stepwise nature of profiling: sample cleaning, DNA isolation, quality assessment, amplification, sequencing, and matching. 'In this case, the timeline has been compressed to just 72 hours by adopting a 24x7 operational system involving multiple forensic labs, including the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Gandhinagar—one of India's largest— that can process around 130 samples at once,' Merchant told HT.


Time of India
4 hours ago
- Time of India
Concerns over scavenging: Ahmedabad Police enlist animal rescuers to relocate stray dogs from AI 171 crash site
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Ahmedabad: The city police have taken help from animal rescue teams to capture and relocate stray dogs from the Air India AI 171 crash site. This follows concerns that the dogs scavenged human remains, hindering recovery and identification and compromising investigation integrity . The May 12 crash killed all but one of the 242 people on board the London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner and at least 38 on the dogs around the crash site are in a bad condition and they are scavenging for food, said a senior police official. "The search operation is still on, and there are several human remains still being found every day. We have noticed that the dogs on site are eating the human remains and entering the crash site," he said. "We have to rehabilitate them for their protection as well as to maintain the sanctity of the investigation."Some of the dogs also appeared distressed, prompting authorities to act swiftly. Officials said the priority is to ensure that the animals receive proper care while also preventing any contamination of the crash Rajput, head of the Cattle Nuisance Control Department of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation , said his department is involved. "We have so far rescued four dogs from the crash site and brought them to our shelter at Danilimda so that they don't disturb the site," Rajput told ET. Personnel from his department have been working at the site from search teams continue to pull out human remains from the debris of the BJ Medical College hostel building destroyed in the crash and the surrounding areas. They recovered a body on Sunday, three days after the Monday, at least 15 human remains were found at the site. These discoveries highlight the challenges for search teams in ensuring complete and respectful recovery of the human remains. Scavenging animals complicate victim identification and debris clearing. Authorities manage the cordoned-off site to facilitate recovery and maintain public health and investigative of Monday, DNA samples of 99 victims have been matched, and 64 bodies, including that of former Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani, have been handed over to their families. The process of identifying remains is painstaking, often taking up to 72 hours for DNA matching, due to their condition.


Mint
5 hours ago
- Mint
Air India plane crash: High-level committee discusses possible causes of aircrash; 119 victims identified
Four days after the horrific crash of an Air India plane AI-717 that claimed over 270 lives, the government of India-led high-level multi-disciplinary committee on Monday deliberated on various possible theories that could have led to the country's worst air disaster in decades. Chaired by Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, the panel heard to the opinions of various stakeholders about the possible causes of the aircrash. Apart from this, the panel also discussed "formulating Standard Operating Procedures for preventing such occurrences in the future". According to the details, 119 victims have so far been identified through DNA matching. While 76 bodies were handed over to their families. Earlier on Thursday, a London Air India flight crashed in Ahmedabad at around 1.39 pm, killing 229 passengers and 12 crew members on board. According to the details, over 270 people have died in the incident. a) 119 victims have so far been identified through DNA matching and 76 bodies, including that of former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, were handed over to their families. b) Apart from 241 passengers and crew, the crash also killed 29 persons on the ground, including five MBBS students. c) Following the crash, the Union government set up a high-level multi-disciplinary committee, which would be led by Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan. d) The authorities have recovered both the black boxes of the plane from the crash site. e) The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is investigating the technical aspects of the crash, while the high-level committee is going to provide a holistic, policy-oriented roadmap for future safeguards. f) Stephanie Pope, head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, met the chairman of Air India on Monday in India. g) The Air India plane crash triggered one of the country's costliest claims, estimated at around $475 million or ₹ 39.4 billion, reported Bloomberg. h) 22 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft in the Indian fleet were inspected after a London-bound Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad last week, reported Hindustan Times. j) Air India will be providing an interim payment of ₹ 25 lakh each to the families of the deceased and to the survivor of the Ahmedabad plane crash. This is in addition to ₹ 1 crore compensation announced by Tata Sons.