1 passenger survives after Air India flight bound for London crashes with 242 aboard
Medic says survivor walked from crash site to ambulance
The Latest:
- Boeing Dreamliner crashed 5 minutes after takeoff in India Thursday afternoon.
- Plane crashed into medical college building in Ahmedabad.
- Flight was scheduled to arrive at London's Gatwick Airport Thursday evening.
- Canadian citizen from Mississauga, Ont., was on the flight.
- Modi, Carney, Anand among officials expressing condolences to affected families.
- Officials say at least 1 person survived.
One passenger survived the crash of an Air India plane bound for London that killed at least 240 people on Thursday in Ahmedabad, one of India's worst airline disasters in decades, officials said.
The death toll includes medical students who were in a college hostel when the plane hit the building shortly after takeoff, said Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer in the northwestern city.
"Most of the bodies have been charred beyond recognition," she said.
Indian Home Minister Amit Shah confirmed that a single passenger survived the crash and said he met him at the hospital. A doctor said he had examined the survivor, whom he identified as Vishwashkumar Ramesh. Air India confirmed he's a British National of Indian descent.
"He was disoriented with multiple injuries all over his body," Dr. Dhaval Gameti told The Associated Press. "But he seems to be out of danger."
Another medic said Ramesh told him that immediately after the plane took off, it began descending and suddenly split into two, which is when he was thrown out, followed by a loud explosion.
According to the medic, Ramesh said he found himself next to debris and walked to a nearby ambulance that brought him to the hospital.
Ramesh, who had his boarding pass with him in the hospital, told local newspaper Hindustan Times that he saw bodies and parts of the plane strewn around the crash site.
"When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran," he told the newspaper.
Ramesh, 40, was travelling to London with his brother. He was sitting in seat 11A, near the emergency exit, he told the paper.
Ahmedabad plane crash: Miracle survivor on seat 11A was sitting next to flight's emergency exit<a href="https://t.co/tz4GJSH7IN">https://t.co/tz4GJSH7IN</a>
—@htTweetsFlight was bound for London Gatwick
Black smoke billowed from the site where the plane crashed and burst into flames near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city of more than five million and the capital of Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state.
Firefighters doused the smoking wreckage of the plane, which would have been fully loaded with fuel shortly after takeoff, and surrounding multi-storey buildings with water. Charred bodies lay on the ground.
Part of the plane fell on top of the dining area of B.J. Medical College, killing at least five medical students and injuring nearly 50. That's according to Divyansh Singh, vice-president of the Federation of All India Medical Association, a national body that represents resident doctors across the country.
"Some of the injured are critical. We are in close contact with our peers in the hospital who are on a lookout for more people feared buried in the debris," said Singh.
The flight was bound for London's Gatwick, the U.K. airport confirmed.
A video on social media showed the jet slowly descending as if it were landing. As soon as it disappeared out of view behind rows of houses, a giant fireball filled the sky. AP was able to verify the video by matching up the flight path of the plane from the runway with the crash site and the nearby residential area.
Ontario resident on plane, family confirms
Air India in a social media post said that in addition to 169 Indian nationals, there were 53 British citizens, seven on board from Portugal and one Canadian citizen. The airline said the flight was carrying 242 passengers and crew overall, amending an earlier reported total.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was in contact with all of India's ministers charged with responding to the crash.
"The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us," said Modi. "It is heartbreaking beyond words. In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected by it."
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Foreign Minister Anita Anand acknowledged the death of one Canadian in separate statements, with both indicating the federal government was in contact with counterparts in India.
CBC News has confirmed that a dentist from Mississauga, Ont., was the Canadian citizen.
The husband of Nirali Sureshkumar Patel had first confirmed she was on the plane to The Canadian Press. He told the news agency he was in the process of booking travel to India for himself and the couple's one-year-old child.
1st Dreamliner crash
Air India's chairman, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, said at the moment "our primary focus is on supporting all the affected people and their families."
He said on X that the airline had set up an emergency centre and support team for families seeking information about those who were on the flight. "Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of all those affected by this devastating event," he said.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the scenes in India "devastating" and said he was "being updated as the situation develops, and my thoughts are with the passengers and their families at this deeply distressing time."
King Charles also expressed condolences on behalf of himself and Queen Camilla. The king also paid tribute to the heroic efforts of the emergency services and all those providing help and support "at this most heartbreaking and traumatic time."
The 787 Dreamliner is a widebody, twin-engined plane. This is the first crash ever of a Boeing 787 aircraft, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.
The aircraft was introduced in 2009 and more than 1,000 have been delivered to dozens of airlines, according to the flightradar24 website. American Airlines has the largest Dreamliner fleet, while Air Canada also has dozens in operation.
Takeoff one of the hardest parts of a flight: expert
While takeoffs and landings are the most dangerous phases of a flight, John McDermid, a computer science professor at the University of York, noted that the plane climbed above 200 metres.
"Pilots can abort takeoff until quite late," McDermid said. "So it seems like the problem occurred very suddenly in the final part of the takeoff roll, or shortly after takeoff, and was sufficiently serious to be unmanageable."
He also said that jets have many backup systems, such as the ability to climb with only one engine, which also made it an unusual accident.
Aviation consultant John M. Cox, the CEO of Safety Operating Systems, told AP from Los Angeles that one of the questions investigators will be asking is whether the Air India plane was properly configured for flight with its slats and flaps. While Cox stressed it was too early to make any conclusions, he said that based on admittedly grainy images of the flight "it doesn't look like that the trailing edge flaps are in the position I would have expected them to be."
"The image shows the airplane with the nose rising and it continuing to sink,'' he said. "That says that the airplane is not making enough lift.''
The crash occurs amid reports that the U.S. Justice Department reached a deal recently with Boeing that would allow the airplane giant to avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading American regulators about the 737 Max jetliner before two crashes which killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019.
Those Boeing crashes occurred five months apart in Indonesia and in Ethiopia, with 18 Canadian citizens among the dead in the Ethiopian incident.
In an updated statement, Boeing said, "We are in contact with Air India regarding Flight 171 and stand ready to support them."
"Our thoughts are with the passengers, crew, first responders and all affected," the company said.
Shares of Boeing Co. were down more than three per cent in early Wall Street trading, CNBC reported.
The Federal Aviation Administration said that through the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S government officials would be able to assist in the investigation should India make such a request. The board helps determine the causes of about 450 international crashes every year.
The last major plane crash in India occurred in 2020 when an Air India Express Boeing 737 skidded off a runway in the southern city of Kozhikode, killing 18 people.
With files from CBC News