The airline said an Air India passenger plane headed to London and more than 240 people crashed in the northwestern Indian city of Ahmedabad, the airline said.
Visual effects on local TV channels show that in densely populated areas near Ahmedabad Airport, the crash site was filled with smoke, with the city’s population of more than 5 million, and the hometown prime minister of Narendra Modi, the capital of Gujarat.
Firefighters poured out the plane’s smoking wreckage, which will be filled with fuel shortly after takeoff and will be watered with water adjacent multi-story buildings. The burnt corpse lay on the ground.
“The scene of a London plane carrying many British nationals crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad was shocking,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement.
Modi called the crash “heartbreaking beyond words.”
“My thoughts are with everyone affected during this sad moment,” he said in a social media post.
The airline said the Gatwick flight carried 242 passengers and crew. Among them, Air India said there were 169 Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.
Civil Aviation Administration Director Faiz Ahmed Kidwai told the Associated Press that Air India AI Flight 171, A Boeing 787-8 five minutes after taking off at 1:38 pm local time, it hit a residential area called Meghani Nagar. He said there were 244 people on board and it was impossible to immediately reconcile the differences with Air India’s numbers.
India’s Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu is working to ensure medical assistance and relief support on site x.
The 787 Dreamliner is a wide twin-engine aircraft. This is the first crash of the Boeing 787 aircraft, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.
Boeing said it was aware of the crash report and was “working to gather more information.”
According to the Flightradar24 website, the aircraft was launched in 2009 and has shipped more than 1,000 to dozens of airlines.
“Our main focus is to support all affected and their families,” said Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Air India.
He said on X that the airline has set up an emergency center and provides families with support teams to seek information about the flightsters.
“Our thought and deepest condolences are for the families and loved ones of all those affected by the devastating incidents,” he said.
British Cabinet Minister Lucy Powell said the government will provide “all support” to those affected by the crash.
She told the House of Commons members: “This is a growing story that will undoubtedly raise concerns and concerns from many, many families and communities.
She added: “We express our deepest sympathy and thought to all these families and the government will provide all the support that comes with people from India and the country.”
The UK has close ties with India. According to the 2021 British Census, there are nearly 1.9 million descendants of India.
India’s last major passenger crash was in 2020, when Air India Express’s Boeing 737 defeated the mountaintop runway in southern India, killing 21 people.
The worst air disaster in India was on November 12, 1996, when Saudi Arabian Airlines’ flight collided with the Kazakhkastan Aircraft flight near Charki Dadri, Haryana State, killing all 349 on both planes.
The crash happened a few days before the Paris Air Show opened, the main aviation expo for Boeing and European rivals airbus Will show their aircraft and airline customers’ jet order battles.
Boeing has In recovery mode More than six years Lion Airlines 610Boeing 737 MAX 8, fell into Java ocean A few minutes after taking off from Jakarta, all 189 people on board were killed on the Indonesian coast. Five months later, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302a Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed after taking off from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killing 157 passengers and crew.
Boeing shares fell nearly 9% before opening in the U.S.
This story was originally fortune.com
