Air India Dreamliner crashes into Ahmedabad college hostel, kills over 290
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, told Reuters.
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.
'Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed,' 40-year-old Ramesh Viswashkumar told the Hindustan Times, which showed a boarding pass for seat 11A in that name online.
Five Indian aircraft shot down
'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.
Ahmedabad police chief G.S. 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, of which Ahmedabad is the main city.
Relatives had been asked to give DNA samples to identify the dead, state health secretary Dhananjay Dwivedi told reporters.
Boeing shares fall 8% after Air India plane crashes
Parts of the plane's body were scattered around the smouldering building into which it crashed. The tail of the plane was stuck on top of the building.
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 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, which began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said.
Crash just after take-off
Thursday's crash occurred just after the plane took off. TV channels showed the plane taking off over a residential area and then disappearing from the screen before a huge fireball could be seen rising into the sky from beyond the houses.
'My sister-in-law was going to London. Within an hour, I got news that the plane had crashed,' Poonam Patel, a relative of one of the passengers, told news agency ANI at the government hospital in Ahmedabad.
Ramila, the mother of a student at the medical college, told ANI her son had gone to the hostel for his lunch break when the plane crashed. 'My son is safe, and I have spoken to him. He jumped from the second floor, so he suffered some injuries,' she said.
According to air traffic control at Ahmedabad Airport, the aircraft departed at 1:39 p.m. (0809 GMT). It gave a Mayday call, signalling an emergency, but thereafter there was no response from the aircraft.
U.S. aerospace safety consultant Anthony Brickhouse said one problematic sign from videos of the aircraft was that the landing gear was down at a phase of flight when it would typically be up.
'If you didn't know what was happening, you would think that plane was on approach to a runway,' Brickhouse said.
Boeing said it was in contact with Air India and working to gather more information. Boeing shares fell 5% as the crash posed a major setback for the planemaker as its new CEO looks to rebuild trust following a series of safety and production challenges.
Aircraft engine-maker GE Aerospace said that it would put a team together to go to India and analyse cockpit data, India's CNBC TV18 reported.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it would lead a team of U.S. investigators travelling to India to help in the investigation.
Britain was working with Indian authorities to urgently establish the facts around the crash and to provide support to those involved, the country's foreign office said.
'The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us,' Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X. 'It is heartbreaking beyond words.' Gujarat is Modi's home state.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said images emerging of the crash were 'devastating'. A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said King Charles was also being kept updated.
India's first crash since 2020
Ahmedabad Airport, which suspended all flight operations after the crash, said it was operational again but with limited flights. The airport is operated by India's Adani Group conglomerate.
The last fatal plane crash in India, the world's third largest aviation market and its fastest growing, was in 2020 and involved Air India Express, the airline's low-cost arm.
The airline's Boeing-737 overshot a 'table-top' runway in southern India, skidded and plunged into a valley, crashing nose-first into the ground and killing 21 people.
The formerly state-owned Air India was taken over by Indian conglomerate Tata Group in 2022, and merged with Vistara – a joint venture between the group and Singapore Airlines – in 2024.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Express Tribune
a day ago
- Express Tribune
26 migrants dead in two shipwrecks off Italy
At least 26 migrants died Wednesday when two boats sank off the coast of Italy's Lampedusa island on Wednesday. Photo REUTERS At least 26 migrants died Wednesday when two boats sank off the coast of Italy's Lampedusa island, with around 10 others still missing, the coastguard and UN officials said. Around 60 people were rescued after the sinkings in the central Mediterranean, a stretch between North Africa and Italy described by the UN as the world's most dangerous sea crossing for migrants. The two boats had left Tripoli, Libya, earlier in the day, according to the Italian coastguard. It said one of the boats started taking on water, causing people to climb onto the other boat, which itself then capsized. "Currently 60 people have been rescued and disembarked in Lampedusa, and (there are) at least 26 victims. The toll is still provisional and being updated," the coastguard said in a statement. Italy's Red Cross, which manages Lampedusa's migrant reception centre, said the survivors included 56 men and four women, updating a previous toll of 22 dead. Flavio Di Giacomo, spokesman for the UN's migration agency (IOM), said around 95 people had been on the two boats. Given how many had been saved, "approximately 35 victims are feared dead or missing", he wrote on social media. Among the first to be transported to the Lampedusa mortuary were the bodies of a newborn, three children, two men and two women, according to Italy's ANSA news agency. Lampedusa, just 90 miles (145 kilometres) off the coast of Tunisia, is often the first port of call for people trying to reach Europe in leaky or overcrowded boats. In recent years, Italian authorities have sought to intercept the boats at sea before they arrive. It was a helicopter from Italy's financial police that spotted a capsized boat and several bodies in the water on Wednesday, about 14 nautical miles off Lampedusa, the coastguard said. Five vessels were searching for survivors, including one from the EU's Frontex border agency, alongside a helicopter and two aircraft, it said. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offered her "deepest condolences" to the victims and vowed to step up efforts to tackle migrant traffickers.
Express Tribune
6 days ago
- Express Tribune
At least 30 injured after train derails in southern Iran
A file image shows a train after derailment is seen near Tabas, Yazd province, Iran June 8, 2022. PHOTO: REUTERS Listen to article A train derailed in the southern Iranian province of Kerman on Friday, injuring more than two dozen people though no deaths were reported, according to local media. "Thirty people were injured when a train derailed on the Kerman-Zarand railway path," Babak Mahmoudi, head of the Red Crescent Society's Relief and Rescue Organization, told the Mehr news agency. A statement from the public relations office of the national railway body carried by the Tasnim news agency reported that after "the timely arrival of railway technical personnel and rescue forces, all passengers safely exited the train". Read More: Pakistan, Iran set $10b trade target Train derailments are not uncommon in Iran, and while they do not generally result in deaths, there have been fatal disasters in the past. In June 2022, 21 people were killed and dozens injured when a train derailed near the central Iranian city of Tabas after hitting an excavator beside the track. In 2016, two trains collided and caught fire in northern Iran, killing 44 people and injuring scores.
Express Tribune
06-08-2025
- Express Tribune
US releases report on Titan submersible implosion
This undated image courtesy of OceanGate Expeditions, shows their Titan submersible launching from a platform. Safety failures by the OceanGate company led to the deadly 2023 implosion of its Titan submersible, the US Coast Guard said in a final report published on August 5. PHOTO: AFP Multiple failures to follow standard safety protocol led to the deadly implosion of a private submersible visiting the Titanic wreckage in 2023, according to a final report published on Tuesday. The US Coast Guard investigation outlined a litany of issues with operator OceanGate's conduct, as well as design flaws in its Titan submersible, that contributed to a "preventable tragedy" in which all five passengers were killed. The 335-page report said "OceanGate's failure to follow established engineering protocols for safety, testing, and maintenance of their submersible, was the primary causal factor" for the implosion. It also accused the company of "intimidation evade regulatory scrutiny." OceanGate had a "toxic workplace environment which used firings of senior staff members and the looming threat of being fired to dissuade employees and contractors from expressing safety concerns," the report said. OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush was joined on the doomed expedition by British explorer Hamish Harding, French deep-sea explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani-British tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman. Seats on the submersible cost $250,000 per person. Communications were lost with the SUV-sized submersible about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive on June 18, 2023, kicking off a dramatic search that briefly captivated the world. Over two miles underwater when the hull collapsed, all occupants "were exposed to approximately 4,930 pounds per square inch of water pressure," resulting in "instantaneous death," the report said. Two seconds later, the monitoring team on the support ship "heard a 'bang' emanating from the ocean's surface, which the investigation later correlated to the Titan's implosion." Debris was found a few days later on the ocean floor, about 1,600 feet (500 meters) from the bow of the Titanic, and human remains were recovered when the sub was brought to the surface. In its report, the Coast Guard said that OceanGate had continued to use Titan despite "a series of incidents that compromised the integrity of the hull and other critical components of the submersible without properly assessing or inspecting the hull." It also identified design flaws with the unique carbon fiber hull "that weakened the overall structural integrity." The US Coast Guard said that the vessel was not "registered, certified, inspected, or classed" by any international flag administration or recognized organization. Last year, the family of Nargeolet sued OceanGate for $50 million, accusing the US-based company of gross negligence. Known as "Mr. Titanic," he had visited the wreckage 37 previous times. Shortly after the tragedy, OceanGate halted all operations. The wreckage of the Titanic sits 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland and has become a lure for nautical experts and underwater tourists since its discovery in 1985. The ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912 during its maiden voyage from England to New York, with 2,224 passengers and crew on board. More than 1,500 people died.
