Air India’s plane crashes in Ahmedabad; Boeing 787-8 with 242 people aboard buildings

An Air India passenger plane that transported 242 passengers and crew crashed Thursday in the city of Ahmedabad in Western India, shortly after leaving to the London Gatwick airport, the airline and officials said.

After initially saying that there were no known survivors of the AI171 Air India flight accident, the authorities confirmed A man who had been on the plane survived And he was being treated in a hospital.

The authorities feared numerous victims on the ground, since the plane had crashed into the buildings.

Air India said the plane, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamlinerdeparted at 1:38 pm local time with 242 people, including 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese citizens and a Canadian.

“The investigations will take time, but anything we can do now, what we are doing,” said the CEO of Air India, Campbell Wilson on Thursday, in a video statement on Thursday. “We understand that people are anxious for information. Know that we will continue sharing accurate and timely information as soon as we can, but anything that we inform must be precise and not speculative. We owe it all involved. For now, our teams are working 24 hours to support passengers, the crew and their families, as well as the researchers, however, we can.”

Wilson said the airline was sending a “special caretakers” to Ahmedabad to provide support.

Gatwick Airport, which is located just south of London, said the plane had been to Earth there at 6:25 pm local time (1:25 pm A Boeing spokesman told News themezone that the company was “in contact with Air India with respect to flight 171 and is ready to support them. Our thoughts are with passengers, the crew, the best -ups and all affected.”

The incident was the first of its kind for 787-8 Dreamliner, according to the statistical summary of Boeing incidents in April 2025 that involve their plane.

The National Transportation Board said that “it would lead a team of American researchers who travel to India to help the aircraft accident research office with their investigation into the accident.”

The Federal Aviation Administration of the United States said that the government of India would lead the investigation, but added that it was “ready to launch a team immediately in coordination with the NTSB” if necessary.

A hospitalized survivor

Ahmedabad Police Commissioner GS Malik was summoned by Ani news agency saying that “the police found a survivor in seat 11A”. He said the person was “in the hospital and is under treatment.”

“Yes, a survivor is confirmed,” said Dhananjay Dwneddi, main secretary of the Gujarat State Department of Health, according to the French News Agency News.

The Indian media spoke with a man in a local hospital who said he was a citizen of the United Kingdom Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, the person who had been included in that seat on flight AI171, according to the flight manifesto shared by the Indian authorities.

Dr. Dhaval Gameti at the Civil Hospital of Ahmedabad told The News that he had examined Ramesh, saying that while the survivor “was disoriented with multiple injuries throughout his body … seems to be out of danger.”

The video shows the plane that crashes against the neighborhood

Video shared online by Indian Network NDTV Show the passenger jet Flying under buildings before disappearing behind them. Then there is a great explosion. You cannot see fire or explosion on the plane before it disappears.

Part of the plane reached the dining room of BJ Medical College and killed at least five medical students, Divyansh Singh, vice president of the Federation of the Medical Association of All India, to the AP. He said that almost 50 people who had been in the building were injured.

“Some of the injured are critical. We are in close contact with our classmates in the hospital who are attentive to more feared people buried in the rubble,” he said.

India’s Minister of Defense, Rajnath Singh, said that former Gujarat prime minister Vijay Rupani was among those killed in the plane crash.

“He will be remembered as a base leader who dedicated his life to the development and well -being of his state,” said Singh in a statement on social networks.

The director of the General Directorate of Civil Aviation of India, Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, told the AP that the AI171 flight crashed five minutes after taking off. The Flight Radar Flight Monitoring website said a final signal from flight AI171 was received only a few seconds after it took off. The flight route on the flight radar showed that the aircraft traveling to the southwest from the airport to a short distance before the route stopped, and the site said that the initial data showed that the aircraft reached a maximum barometric altitude of 625 feet before it began to descend.

“At this point, it’s very, very early, we don’t know much,” said aviation consultant John M. Cox to AP. “But 787 has very extensive flight data monitoring: the parameters in the flight data recorder are thousands, so once we get that recorder, they can know quite quickly what happened.”

The Indian army said that at least 130 staff had deployed, including doctors and paramedics, to help civil authorities combing through the rubble and help treat the injured, the AP reported.

The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, said: “The tragedy in Ahmedabad has surprised and saddened us. It is heartbreaking beyond words. In this sad time, my thoughts are with all those affected.

“The emerging scenes of a plane to London that transports many British citizens who crash in the Indian city of Ahmedabad are devastating,” said the United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in a statement.

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