An Air India plane bound for London Gatwick, England, crashed shortly after take-off from the Indian city of Ahmedabad.
There were 242 people on board – 230 passengers and 12 crew members. A man who miraculously survived was found , the local police chief reports, the only one on board the vessel. And there are also deaths on land, the provisional death toll amounts to about 300.
The aircraft, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, crashed a few seconds after take-off in a residential area where the dormitory of the BJ medical college is located : the authorities say that several medical specialists were involved in the tragedy.
According to Flight Radar data, reported by Indian media and the BBC, at that moment the aircraft was at an altitude of just 625 feet, equal to about 200 meters . This is the first accident involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the aircraft had been delivered to Air India in 2014.
The last seconds of terror before the end were captured by an amateur videographer who managed to capture the moment of the plane's takeoff. The images show quite clearly from behind the large passenger plane trying to gain altitude after lifting off the runway, but it fails, as if it did not have enough speed . Then it continues to fly low over the houses for a few moments, and finally stalls and disappears from view.
The passengers included 169 Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian . In a post on X, the airline said: “Flight AI171, operating from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, was involved in an accident today, 12 June 2025. We are currently verifying the details and will share further updates as soon as possible on airindia.com and our X account.”
Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu visited the crash site.
(Online Union)