Ahmedabad, India (AP) – A passenger survived Air India plane crash Aimed from London who killed at least 240 people on Thursday in Ahmedabad, one of the worst air disasters in India for decades, officials said.
The number of deaths includes medicine students who were in a college inn when the plane hit the building shortly after takeoff, said Vidhi CHAPHARY, a high-level police officer from the northwest city.
“Most bodies have been charred beyond recognition,” she said.
Indian Minister of the Interior, Amit Shah, confirmed that a single passenger had survived the accident and said that he had met him in the hospital. A doctor said that he had examined the survivor, whom he identified as Vishwashkumar Ramesh.
“He was disoriented with multiple injuries on his entire body,” said Dr. Dhaval Gameti to the Associated Press. “But he seems to be out of danger.”
Black smoke has died out of the site When the plane crashed and caught fire near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city of more than 5 million and the capital of Gujarat, the original state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The research and rescue teams respond to a plane accident in Ahmedabad, India, Thursday June 12, 2025.
The firefighters extinguished the smoking wreck from the plane, which would have been fully loaded with fuel shortly after takeoff, and buildings with several adjacent states with water. The charred bodies lay on the ground and certain parts of the fuselage were dispersed around the site. Indian army teams helped civil authorities eliminate debris and treat the wounded.
A video on social networks showed that the jet was slowly descending as if it were landing. As soon as he disappeared from the view behind rows of houses, a giant fireball filled the sky. The AP was able to check the video by matching the flight trajectory of the plane from the track with the accident site and the nearby residential area.
On the accident site, the tail cone of the plane with damaged stabilizing fins still attached to it was housed near the top of one of the buildings.
In an article on social networks, Modi described the crash “tearing beyond words” and said that “my thoughts are with all affected people”.
Sambit Patra, a legislator of the Modi Bharatiya Janata party, said that former Gujarat Minister Vijay Rupani was among the dead.
Divyansh Singh, vice-president of the Federation of the All India Medical Association, said that at least five students of the Medical College had been killed on the ground and that 50 others were injured. Singh said that some of them were in critical condition and that many people are “dreaded buried in debris”.
Air India said the flight to London Gatwick airport transported 242 passengers and crew, with 169 Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board. The Boeing 787-8 crashed in a residential area called Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off at 1:38 p.m. (08:08 GMT), said Ahmed Kidwai, CEO of the Civil Aviation Directorate, said in Faiz Ahmed Kidwi.
The first crash of a Boeing 787
This is the first crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, according to the database of the aviation security network. Boeing said he “worked to collect more information”.
India’s aviation regulatory organization said that the plane had given Mayday, signaling an emergency, but had not responded to calls by the airport traffic control.
Aviation consultant John M. Cox, the CEO of operating systems security, told the AP of Los Angeles that if the first images of the accident were poor, it appeared that the plane had the nose and did not climb, which is one of the things that the investigators would examine.
“At this stage, it’s very, very, very early; we don’t know much,” he said. “But the 787 has very in -depth flight data monitoring – the parameters of the flight data recorder are in thousands – so once we have this recorder, they will be able to know what happened fairly quickly.”
Two -to -hand -boring planes were introduced in 2009 and more than 1,000 were delivered to dozens of airlines, according to the Flightradar24 website.
Air India president Natarajan Chandrasekaran said that “our main objective is to support all those affected and their families”.
The United Kingdom promises support
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government was in constant contact with Indian authorities and encouraged passengers close to the Air India flight to contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Our hearts and thoughts are absolutely with friends and families of all those affected who will be absolutely devastated by this horrible news,” said Starmer.
British Minister Lucy Powell said the government would provide “all the support it can” to the accidents.
“This is a story that takes place, and this will undoubtedly cause a huge amount of concern and concern for the many families and communities here,” she told legislators in the House of Commons.
Great Britain has very close links with India. There were nearly 1.9 million people in the country of Indian origin, according to the Census of the United Kingdom 2021.
The condolences also flocked to King Charles III, who said that he and his wife, Queen Camilla, were “desperately shocked” by the accident.
“Our special prayers and our deepest possible sympathy are with the families and friends of all the people affected by this terror tragic incident in so many nations,” he said in a statement.
Previous air disasters in India
The last major passenger plane accident in India was in 2020 when an Air India expresses Boeing-737 skidding on a track at the top of a hill In southern India, killing 21 people.
The worst air disaster in India took place on November 12, 1996, when a Saudi flight Airlines collided outdoors with a Kazakhstan Airlines flight near Charki Dadri in the state of Haryana, killing the 349 on board the two planes.
The accident occurs a few days before the opening of the Paris Air Show, a large aviation exhibition where Boeing and the European Rival Airbus will present their plane and fight for the orders of jets of the airlines of the airlines.
Boeing has been in recovery mode for over six years after Lion Air Flight 610A Boeing 737 Max 8 plunged into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia a few minutes after the takeoff of Jakarta, killing the 189 people on board. Five months later, Flight 302 of Ethiopian airlinesA Boeing 737 Max 8, crashed after takeoff of Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia, killing 157 passengers and crew members.
Boeing Co’s shares fell almost 9% before opening up the United States
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Roy reported to New Delhi. The writers of the associated press Aijaz Hussain and Sheikh Saaliq in Srinagar, India; Pan Pylas, Kelvin Chan and Brian Melley in London; And Annika Wolters, David Rising, Adam Schreck and Lorian Belanger in Bangkok contributed to this report.
