London-bound Air India flight with more than 240 aboard crashes after
takeoff from Ahmedabad, India
[June 12, 2025]
By AJIT SOLANKI and RAJESH ROY
AHMEDABAD, India (AP) — An Air India passenger plane bound for London
with more than 240 people on board crashed Thursday in India’s
northwestern city of Ahmedabad, the airline said.
Visuals on local television channels showed smoke billowing from the
crash site in what appeared to be a populated area near the airport in
Ahmedabad, a city with a population of more than 5 million.
Firefighters doused the smoking wreckage of the plane, which would have
been fully loaded with fuel shortly after takeoff, and an adjacent
multi-story building with water. Charred bodies lay on the ground.
“The scenes emerging of a London-bound plane carrying many British
nationals crashing in the Indian city of Ahmedabad are devastating,”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement.
The airline said the Gatwick Airport-bound flight was carrying 242
passengers and crew. Of those, Air India said there were 169 Indians, 53
Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.
Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, the director general of the directorate of civil
aviation, told The Associated Press that Air India flight AI 171, a
Boeing 787-8, crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar five
minutes after taking off at 1:38 p.m. local time. He said 244 people
were on board and it was not immediately possible to reconcile the
discrepancy with Air India's numbers.
All efforts were being made to ensure medical aid and relief support at
the site, India’s Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu
posted on X.
The 787 Dreamliner is a widebody, twin-engine plane. This is the first
crash ever of a Boeing 787 aircraft, according to the Aviation Safety
Network database.
Boeing said it was aware of the reports of the crash and was “working to
gather more information.”
The aircraft was introduced in 2009 and more than 1,000 have been
delivered to dozens of airlines, according to the flightradar24 website.
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 center and support
team for families seeking information about those who were on the
flight.
[to top of second column]
|
Smoke rises after an airplane crashed in Ahmedabad, Gujarat state,
India, Thursday, June 12, 2025. (Mohan Nakum via AP)
“Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families and
loved ones of all those affected by this devastating event,” he
said.
British Cabinet minister Lucy Powell said the government will
provide “all the support that it can” to those affected by the
crash.
“This is an unfolding story, and it will undoubtedly be causing a
huge amount of worry and concern to the many, many families and
communities here and those waiting for the arrival of their loved
ones,” she told lawmakers in the House of Commons.
“We send our deepest sympathy and thoughts to all those families,
and the government will provide all the support that it can with
those in India and those in this country as well,” she added.
Britain has very close ties with India. There were nearly 1.9
million people in the country of Indian descent, according to the
2021 U.K. census.
The last major passenger plane crash in India was in 2020 when an
Air India Express Boeing-737 skidded off a hilltop runway in
southern India, killing 21 people.
The worst air disaster in India was on Nov. 12, 1996, when a Saudi
Arabian Airlines flight collided midair with a Kazakhastan Airlines
Flight near Charki Dadri in Haryana state, killing all 349 on board
the two planes.
___
Roy reported from New Delhi. Sheikh Saaliq in Srinagar, India, Pan
Pylas and Brian Melley in London and Annika Wolters, David Rising,
Adam Schreck and Lorian Belanger in Bangkok contributed to this
report.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
