London-bound AI plane with 242 on board crashes near Ahmedabad airport

Air India plane crash: AI171 crashes after takeoff in Ahmedabad

An Ahmedabad-London Air India plane carrying 242 passengers and crew crashed into a medical college complex here minutes after takeoff on Thursday, possibly killing all on board in one of the country’s worst air tragedies. There was no official count of those killed even hours after the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (AI171) crashed in the city’s civil hospital and BJ Medical College near the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport and burst into a ball of fire.

One survivor was found in seat 11A of the London-bound Air India flight that crashed minutes after taking off from Ahmedabad with 242 people on board. As per the flight data, the name of the survivor is Ramesh. “The police found one survivor in seat 11A. One survivor has been found in the hospital and is under treatment. Cannot say anything about the number of deaths yet. The death toll may increase as the flight crashed in a residential area,” Ahmedabad Police Commissioner GS Malik.

According to Air India, of the 230 passengers, 169 were Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. The other 12 were two pilots and 10 crew members. The pilot of the twin-engine wide bodied aircraft issued a ‘Mayday‘ distress call, denoting a full emergency, soon after takeoff at 1.39 pm, the Air Traffic Control at Ahmedabad said.

The search was also on for the aircraft’s black box — the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder — for clues to understand what happened in the last crucial moments. The 11-year-old aircraft could be seen from miles away, losing altitude rapidly and combusting in a fiery blaze that sent plumes of thick black smoke spiralling up in the air.

The aircraft climbed just about 600-800 feet before plummeting to the ground almost immediately, aviation sources said. Former Gujarat chief minister and BJP leader Vijay Rupani was among the passengers on the doomed flight to London’s Gatwick airport. “The aircraft departed from Ahmedabad at 1339 IST (0809 UTC) from Runway 23. It gave a MAYDAY Call to ATC, but thereafter no response was given by the aircraft to the calls made by ATC,” according to a statement from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Visuals from the wreckage area showed bodies being pulled out and the injured, many with burns, wheeled into the city’s civil hospital close by. Eyewitnesses in Ahmedabad said the blaze was so intense that it led to several multi-storey buildings being burnt, trees being singed, and cars being damaged. One image showed the snout of the plane crashing through the top floor of a building that appeared to be a dining area of the hostel of nurses and doctors. Elsewhere, too, there were scenes of complete devastation with mangled metal of the wreckage, snarls of tangled wire, and smoke rising from burning embers.

This is the first crash involving the Boeing Dreamliner, feted for its advanced features. It is also India’s second biggest air disaster since 2020, when an Air India Express flight skidded off a wet runway while landing at Kozhikode in Kerala and split into two. Of the 190 people on board, 21, including two pilots, lost their lives. Airport operations in Ahmedabad were temporarily suspended and resumed in the evening.

The ill-fated flight was under the command of Capt Sumeet Sabharwal along with First Officer Clive Kundar. While Sabharwal has 8,200 hours of flying experience, Kundar 1,100 hours, the DGCA said in a statement. Immediately after departure from Runway 23, the aircraft fell on the ground outside the airport perimeter, it said.

“On Jun 12, 2025, Air India B787 Aircraft VT-ANB, while operating flight AI171 from Ahmedabad to Gatwick, has crashed immediately after takeoff from Ahmedabad,” the statement said, adding that there were 242 persons on board, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew. Several eyewitnesses on the busy, everyday afternoon described the horror of what they had seen.

The plane was flying very low, and it crashed into the residential quarters of doctors and nursing staff of the civil hospital and BJ Medical college,” said an eyewitness. “There are several five-floor buildings which are residential quarters of doctors and nursing staff. Many people in those apartments were injured as, along with the plane, the buildings also caught fire,” he said. Another said several cars and vehicles parked on the premises also caught fire.

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