More than 240 people died when an Air India flight to London crashed in Ahmedabad shortly after take-off on Thursday, in the worst aviation disaster for more than a decade.
Air India said all but one of the 242 people on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner had died. There were believed to be additional fatalities on the ground in Ahmedabad, the largest city in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
A single passenger survived, who walked away from the wreckage and was taken to hospital for treatment. Indian officials said the sole survivor was a Briton called Viswash Kumar Ramesh.
The crash comes after a series of accidents involving Boeing aircraft and continued questions over the US aerospace company’s safety record. Boeing’s shares closed down 4.8 per cent on Thursday.
Air India said those on board Flight 171 from Ahmedabad to London’s Gatwick airport were 169 Indian nationals, as well as 53 British citizens, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. There were also 10 cabin crew and two pilots.
The airline said the Dreamliner was 12 years old. Flightradar24, a tracking service, said that after reaching an altitude of 625 feet, the aircraft began to descend with a vertical speed of 475 feet per minute.
It added the passenger jet’s signal was lost at 1.38pm local time, moments after its departure.
The Indian aviation regulator said the Dreamliner made a mayday call to air traffic control “but thereafter no response was given by the aircraft to the calls made by ATC”.
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Rohan Krishnan, head of the Indian doctors’ association Faima, said the flight crashed into Ahmedabad’s BJ Medical College, adding that some students had been taken to hospital.
The crash site was cordoned off by police, but the charred and mangled remains of the Dreamliner could be seen strewn across the compound of a student hostel close to the college.
James Patel, 18, who lives in the neighbourhood, said he and his friends heard a “massive blast” and tried to approach the site, but there was a “massive ball of fire” and the area was engulfed in black smoke.
The Air India crash is the worst civil aviation disaster by number of fatalities since 2014, when Russia-backed forces in Ukraine shot down a Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board, according to Aviation Safety Network.
John Strickland, an aviation consultant, said Boeing’s Dreamliner had a “good in-service safety record” since it started flying in 2011.
It is the first time a 787 has crashed, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. Last year Boeing rejected allegations about the aircraft’s structural integrity from a longtime in-house engineer, saying they had been rigorously examined.
But the crash follows a series of safety crises involving other Boeing aircraft. The company is trying to rebuild trust after two fatal crashes of its 737 Max jet in 2018 and 2019, which led to the departure of its then chief executive Dennis Muilenburg.
The mid-air blowout of a door plug on a 737 Max-9 jet operated by Alaska Airlines in January 2024 triggered another clear-out of top management amid concerns over the quality of Boeing’s manufacturing.
Kelly Ortberg, who became Boeing chief executive last August, has sought to improve its quality control processes, as well as shore up its balance sheet.
Ortberg said he had spoken to Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Air India’s chair, to “offer our full support”, and that a Boeing team was ready to assist an investigation led by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.
“Our deepest condolences go out to the loved ones of the passengers and crew on board Air India Flight 171, as well as everyone affected in Ahmedabad,” he added.
GE Aerospace, which made the Dreamliner’s engines, said it would support the investigation into the crash. The company’s shares closed down 2.3 per cent.
An image taken from video footage of the crash site
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us. It is heartbreaking beyond words.”
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer wrote on X: “The scenes emerging of a London-bound plane carrying many British nationals crashing in the Indian city of Ahmedabad are devastating.”
Air India said Flight 171 had been involved in an “accident”, as it confirmed that 241 of the 242 people on board had died.
The company offered its “deepest condolences to the families of the deceased”, adding that the airline was “giving its full co-operation to the authorities investigating this incident”.
Campbell Wilson, Air India’s chief executive, was on a flight heading for France to attend the Paris air show on Thursday but it diverted back to New Delhi, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Flight trackers showed that an Air India Boeing 787-8 en route to Paris suddenly returned to the Indian capital soon after the crash in Ahmedabad.
Indian conglomerate Tata took over Air India from state control in 2022, and has sought to modernise the airline. In 2023 Air India agreed a deal with Boeing and Airbus to buy 470 new aircraft, one of the largest orders in aviation history.
Air India had faced the “challenges of decades of state ownership and poor management”, Strickland said.
However, he added Tata had brought in experienced management and the carrier “had begun to move in the right direction both operationally and commercially”.
The US National Transportation Safety Board said it would lead a team of American investigators going to India to help in the investigation. UK investigators are also travelling to the site.
