AirIndiaPlanecrash in Ahmedabad
Morethan200died
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Air
India Plane crash in
Ahmedabad
More than 200 died
Air India plane carrying 242 crashes in India en route to United Kingdom
FlightAI171wasoperatingfromAhmedabadtoLondonGatwick,Air Indiasaid.
By KevinShalvey, CharlotteGardiner and Prashun Mazumdar
June 12, 2025, 7:27 AM ET
International headlines from ABC NewsCatch up on the developing stories from around the globe making headlines.Ajit Solanki/AP
LONDON and DELHI An Air India airliner carrying 242 passengers and crew en route to the United Kingdom from India crashed shortly after takeoff in an area near the Ahmedabad airport, in India's Gujarat state, local officials and the airline said.
"The flight, which departed from Ahmedabad at 13:38 hrs, was carrying 242 passengers and crew members on board the Boeing 787-8 aircraft, the airline said in a statement posted on social media. "Of these, 169 are Indian nationals, 53 are British nationals, 1 Canadian national and 7 Portuguese nationals."
The plane, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, crashed in the Meghaninagar area near the airport, the Ahmedabad Police Commissioner said Thursday.
The Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation said the plane "fell on the ground outside the airport perimeter" immediately after it departed from the airport.
"Heavy black smoke was seen coming from the accident site," the Directorate General said in the statement.
The Indian Civil Aviation Minister said he has "directed all aviation and emergency response agencies to take swift and coordinated action," to respond to the crash.
The local governor, Bhupendra Patel, spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the crash to coordinate their emergency response, officials said. Patel said he ordered a so-called "green corridor" for emergency vehicles to travel between the crash site and local hospitals.
Modi in a statement confirmed that he'd been in touch with local officials. "The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us," he said in a statement on social media. "It is heartbreaking beyond words. In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected by it."
The flight was scheduled to fly from Ahmedabad International Airport to London Gatwick Airport, according to FlightRadar24, a tracking site. It had been scheduled to depart at 9:50 a.m. local time, with a scheduled arrival time in London at 18:25 p.m. local time. Gatwick in a statement confirmed the planned arrival time.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was being updated on the situation in Ahmedabad, adding that his "thoughts are with the passengers and their families at this deeply distressing time."
"The scenes emerging of a London-bound plane carrying many British nationals crashing in the Indian city of Ahmedabad are devastating," Starmer said in a statement.
The captain had 8,200 hours of experience and the copilot had 1,100 hours of flying experience, India's Directorate General added.
ABCNews'JoeSimonetti,EllieKaufman,ClaraMcMichaelandSamSweeney contributedtothisreport.
British man is only survivor of Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, said to have told family he has ‘no idea’ how he escaped fireball that killed hundreds
Air India plane crash – latest updates
Alexandra Topping andKate McCusker
Thu 12 Jun 2025 13.07 EDT
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A British man is the sole survivor of the London-bound Air India flight carrying 242 people that crashed shortly after takeoff in the north-west Indian city of Ahmedabad.
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who was in seat 11A of the flight, said the aircraft crashed almost immediately after takeoff. It is believed his brother was on the same flight.
“Thirty seconds after takeoff there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly,” Ramesh told the Hindustan Times from a general ward in the civil hospital in Asarwa, Ahmedabad.
The 40-year-old British national told the newspaper he was returning to the UK, where he has lived for 20 years, after visiting family in India. Another brother, speaking outside the family home in Leicester, in the East Midlands, said Ramesh had “no idea” how he escaped.
Nayan Kumar Ramesh, 27, added: “We were just shocked as soon as we heard it. I last spoke to him yesterday morning. We’re devastated, just devastated. He said, ‘I have no idea how I exited the plane’.”
A relative added: “He’s doing well, I think. It’s a big shock. I don’t have many words to describe the incident.”
Initial reports suggested all passengers onboard had died, but local police confirmed they had found one survivor of the flight, which plummeted into a medical college on Thursday, with videos showing a huge explosion and thick smoke in the immediate aftermath.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which was carrying 53 British nationals among its more than 240 passengers, was engulfed in a huge fireball after crashing into the Meghani Nagar residential area minutes after taking off at 1.38pm local time (09:08 BST) on Thursday.
The Ahmedabad police commissioner, GS Malik, told the news agency ANI there was one survivor who was in seat 11A. The flight manifest shared by authorities said the passenger in that seat was Ramesh. Malik told ANI the survivor “has been in the hospital and is under treatment”.
Ramesh, who lives with his wife and child in London, was anxious to find his brother who was sitting on a different row. He told the newspaper: “When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me. Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital.”
A video of the crash circulating online showed the aircraft flying over a residential area of Ahmedabad. It disappeared behind trees before a huge explosion was followed by large plumes of black smoke.
Images of the aftermath showed parts of the plane embedded into BJ Medical College, with pieces of its landing gear, fuselage and tail protruding from the building.
Air India said 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, one Canadian and seven Portuguese nationals were onboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Gatwick airport said a reception centre was being set up for relatives of passengers.
A British couple who run a spiritual wellness centre and yoga studio were reportedly among those on the flight. Fiongal and Jamie Greenlaw-Meek, who run the Wellness Foundry in south London and Ramsgate, Kent, which offers psychic readings, tarot, reiki and yoga, spoke before the flight of their love of India and the “mind-blowing” experiences they had had there.
On Tuesday, the Greenlaw-Meeks posted on their social media accounts from their hotel in the city. They spoke of creating a vlog documenting their experience, saying they were excited to talk about it. Sitting next to his husband, Fiongal said: “So it’s our last night in India and we have had a magical experience really, there have been some quite mind-blowing things that have happened.”
Akeel Nanabawa, his wife, Hannaa Vorajee, and their daughter, who lived in Gloucester, were also onboard, according to the Gloucester Muslim Community, which said in a statement: “Unfortunately, we are led to believe
that three Gloucester locals, Akeel Nanabawa, his wife and four-year old child, were all onboard. Those wishing to do taziyat, please allow the family some time to mourn amongst themselves.”
In a post on social media, the Gloucester Muslim Bereavement Council said it was “profoundly heartbroken by the devastating loss of life in the catastrophic crash of Flight AI171, travelling from Ahmedabad to London”.
Naming the three victims, it said: “During this moment of overwhelming sorrow, our hearts go out to all those left behind. No words can truly ease the pain of such a profound loss, but we pray that the family may find solace in the tremendous outpouring of compassion and solidarity from communities across the world.”
UK officials are being deployed to India to support the investigation, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch said. Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, said the crash was “devastating”, while the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, said it was “heartbreaking beyond words”.
King Charles and Queen Camilla said in a statement they were “desperately shocked”, adding: “Our special prayers and deepest possible sympathy are with the families and friends of all those affected by this appallingly tragic incident across so many nations, as they await news of their loved ones.”
What We Know About a Passenger Plane Crash in Western India
An Air India passenger plane traveling with 242 people to London from Ahmedabad, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, crashed on Thursday.
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Firefighters at the site of an airplane crash in Ahmedabad, India, on Thursday.Credit...Ajit Solanki/Associated Press
By Amelia Nierenberg
Reporting from London June 12, 2025Updated 7:41 a.m. ET
An Air India passenger plane carrying 242 people that was bound for London crashed in western India on Thursday, the airline said on social media.
Flight 171, which crashed shortly after takeoff outside of the Ahmedabad airport in the state of Gujarat, was headed for London’s Gatwick Airport, Air India said.
There was no immediate information about survivors, but India’s health minister, Jagat Prakash Nadda, said that “many people” had died. The airline said that those who were injured were being taken to hospitals.
“Shocked and devastated to learn about the flight crash in Ahmedabad,” India’s minister of civil aviation, Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu, wrote on social media. “We are on highest alert.”
Wheredidthecrashtakeplace?
The plane crashed near the airport in the city of Ahmedabad, in a residential area on the campus of a local medical college, according to an official from the Bharatiya Janata Party, the state’s governing party. 3000 ft. 1 km.
© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap India
Note: All times shown are local. Source: Flightradar24
By Samuel Granados
The plane “was involved in an accident today after takeoff” at 1:38 p.m. local time, Air India confirmed. It added that it was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.
Videos shared by local media showed enormous plumes of thick black smoke billowing in the sky near the airport. Firefighters were trying to douse the wreckage of the plane in front of charred residential buildings, according to footage verified by The New York Times.
Whowas on theflight?
Air India said that the plane’s 242 passengers and crew members included 169 Indians, 53 British citizens, seven Portuguese nationals and one Canadian.
One of the passengers was Vijay Rupani, Gujarat’s former chief minister who led the state until 2021, according to a passenger list confirmed by officials of his party.
What happenedat the medicalcollege?
The plane killed at least five medical students at B.J. Medical College, where it crashed, according to Minakshi Parikh, the dean of college.
She said that the plane hit the dining facility of the student hostel at a time when 60 to 80 students were inside.
“Most of the students escaped, but 10 or 12 were trapped in the fire,” she said. “The smoke was very thick.”
What was thecause?
It was not immediately clear why the plane crashed.
What is Air India’s safetyrecord?
Air India, the country’s flagship carrier, has worked to boost its record after a number of dangerous incidents about 15 years ago.
Its last major crash was in 2020, when a passenger plane from Air India Express, a subsidiary, skidded and cracked in half on a rain-soaked runway.
At least 17 people died in that accident in the southern Indian state of Kerala, in which visibility was poor.
A decade earlier, in 2010, an Air India Express plane overshot a hilltop runway in Mangalore, a city in the western state of Karnataka. It burst into flames, killing more than 150 people.
At the time, many were concerned about the safety of India’s rapidly expanding aviation sector in 2009, there had been three near-misses at the Mumbai airport as well as concerns about Air India’s professionalism.
A plane had flown unmanned for several minutes during a scuffle between pilots and flight attendants, and another Air India plane was delayed 11 hours by a plane-wide search for rats.
What dowe knowabout theBoeingDreamliner?
No Dreamliners, also known as 787s, have been destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair, which is called a “hull loss” in the aviation industry, according to Boeing’s most recent annual summary of incidents and accidents released in April 2025.
In a statement on Thursday, Boeing said it was aware of initial reports about the Air India crash and was “working to gather more information.”
No fatal incidents involving the Dreamliner have been recorded to date, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. But the airplane has experienced operational problems in the past that resulted in passenger injuries.
In November, a 787-flight operated by Latam Airlines, the Chilean airliner, “experienced a sudden descent while in cruise,” resulting in two serious injuries, Boeing data shows.
And the company has faced serious safety concerns raised by whistleblowers in the past: The Federal Aviation Administration said in April 2024
that it was looking into claims by a Boeing engineer that parts of the plane’s fuselage were improperly fastened.
That engineer, Sam Salehpour, said that the fuselage could break apart midflight after thousands of trips. Large pieces came from different manufacturers, he said, and were not the same shape when they fit together.
Boeing said it had done extensive testing on the Dreamliner and “determined that this is not an immediate safety of flight issue” and that it was “fully confident” in the plane.
It is unclear how many flights the Air India aircraft had completed. The plane was over a decade old, Flightradar24 records show.
Sanjana Varghese, Isabella Kwai, Enjoli Liston, Hari Kumar and John Yoon contributed reporting.
Dramatic photos show rescue teams at the Air India plane crash site in Ahmedabad
People gather near a damaged building at the site where an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025.
A London-bound Air India passenger plane with more than 200 people on board crashed shortly after taking off from an airport in India's western city of Ahmedabad, the airline and police officials said June 12. Amit Dave, REUTERS
Firefighters work at the site where Air India flight 171 crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025. The London-bound passenger plane crashed on June 12 in India's western city of Ahmedabad with 242 on board, aviation officials said in what the airline called a "tragic accident".
Firefighters work to put out a fire at the site where an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025.
Amit Dave, REUTERS
People carry the body of a victim from the crash site after an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025.
Amit Dave, REUTERS
People gather near the site where an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025.
Amit Dave, REUTERS
Rescue team members work as smoke rises at the site where an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025.
Amit Dave, REUTERS
Firefighters work to put out a fire at the site where an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025.
Amit Dave, REUTERS
Emergency crews work as smoke rises from the wreckage of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner where the Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025.
Amit Dave, REUTERS
Smoke rises near a damaged building and trees after an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025, in this still image taken from video.
ANI, Via REUTERS
Rescue team members work as smoke rises at the site where an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025.
