Ahmedabad, India: A London-bound passenger plane crashed Thursday in India’s western city of Ahmedabad with 242 on board, aviation officials said in what the airline called a “tragic accident”.
Air India’s flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London Gatwick crashed shortly after takeoff, officials said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi described as “heartbreaking beyond words” the crash in Ahmedabad, where an AFP journalist saw rescuers picking through charred wreckage at the crash site.
“Our office is near the building where the plane crashed. We saw people from the building jumping from the second and third floor to save themselves. The plane was in flames,” said one resident, who declined to be named.
India’s civil aviation authority said there were 242 people aboard, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew.
Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and a Canadian.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the scenes from the crash were “devastating”, in a statement addressing passengers and their families “at this deeply distressing time.”
The plane issued a mayday call and “crashed immediately after takeoff” outside the airport perimeter, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said.
Ahmedabad, the main city of India’s Gujarat state, is home of around eight million people, and the busy airport is surrounded by densely packed residential areas.
An AFP journalist in the city said the plane crashed in an area between Ahmedabad civil hospital and the city’s Ghoda Camp neighbourhood.
– ‘Devastating’ –
Aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu directed “all aviation and emergency response agencies to take swift and coordinated action.”
“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 added.
The airport was shut with all flights “suspended until further notice”, the operator said.
An emergency centre has been activated and a support team set up for families seeking information, Air India chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said.
“Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of all those affected by this devastating event,” he said.
India has suffered a series of fatal air crashes, including a 1996 disaster when two jets collided mid-air over New Delhi, killing nearly 350 people.
In 2010 an Air India Express jet crashed and burst into flames at Mangalore airport in southwest India, killing 158 of the 166 passengers and crew on board.
Decades earlier, an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Montreal to London in June 1985 crashed into the sea off Ireland with 329 people on board and leaving no survivors.
An Indian commission determined that militant Sikhs had planted a bomb in baggage being carried by the plane.
India’s airline industry has boomed in recent years with Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), last month calling growth “nothing short of phenomenal”.
The growth of its economy has made India and its 1.4 billion people the world’s fourth-largest air market — domestic and international — with IATA projecting it will become the third biggest within the decade.
Air India ordered 100 more Airbus planes last year after a giant contract in 2023 for 470 aircraft — 250 Airbus and 220 Boeing.
India’s domestic air passenger traffic reached a milestone last year by “surpassing 500,000 passengers in a single day”, according to India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation.
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