Air India Plane Crashes with 242 People Onboard

A Boeing passenger plane bound for London crashed soon after taking off in India on Thursday, likely killing all 242 onboard and likely many more on the ground as it crashed in a fireball in a busy residential neighborhood.

Air India Flight 171 crashed in Ahmedabad — a city of about 5 million people — just 30 seconds after taking off heading to London Gatwick, according to alarming video of it taking off then crashing.

“It appears there are no survivors in the plane crash,” Commissioner G.S. Malik said, adding that “some locals would have also died” in the buildings it crashed into.

“Exact figures on casualties are being ascertained,” he said.

The pilot made a “Mayday” call seconds after takeoff — then shocking videos show the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner descending over the busy city and bursting into a massive fireball, with thick black smoke soon consuming the skyline.

The plane smashed directly into a doctor’s residence, with photos showing the back of the jet sticking out of the building.

Distressing images showed charred bodies around a flattened area of the city.

The 242 people included 217 adults and 11 children, a source told Reuters. Of them, 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven were Portuguese, and one was Canadian, Air India said.

“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.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it “heartbreaking beyond words.”

“In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected,” he said in a social media post.

Video on local channels showed thick, black columns of smoke billowing from the crash site near the airport in the northwestern Indian city.

“Rescue teams have been mobilized, and all efforts are being made to ensure medical aid and relief support are being rushed to the site,” said India’s aviation minister, Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu, according to the BBC.

Air India’s chairman, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, said the airline is working on assisting first responders.

“At this moment, our primary focus is on supporting all the affected people and their families,” she said.

“We are doing everything in our power to assist the emergency response teams at the site and to provide all necessary support and care to those impacted.”

All flights were suspended by the Ahmedabad airport.

Gatwick airport confirmed that the flight, which had been due to arrive at 6:25 p.m. in London, had crashed on departure.

The disaster was the first-ever crash 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 787 Dreamliner is a widebody, twin-engine plane introduced in 2009, and more than 1,000 have been delivered to dozens of airlines, according to the Flightradar24 website.

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 to those in India and those in this country as well,” she added.

The worst air disaster in India was on Nov. 12, 1996, when a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight collided midair with a Kazakhstan Airlines Flight near Charki Dadri in Haryana state, killing all 349 on board the two planes.