Plane Crash in India, at least 240 dead.

[Syt]

https://apnews.com/article/india-plane-crash-cad8dad5cd0e92795b03d357404af5f8

Another Boeing (though could be coincidence for once).

London-bound Air India flight with more than 240 aboard crashes after takeoff from Ahmedabad, India

AHMEDABAD, India (AP) — Ahmedabad's city police commissioner says there don't appear to have been any survivors from an Air India airliner that crashed, and that there are likely also casualties from the area of the city where it went down.

The flight crashed midday shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad airport with more than 240 people on board.

"It appears there are no survivors in the plane crash," Commissioner G.S. Malik told The Associated Press, adding that with the plane crashing in a residential area with offices, "some locals would have also died."

"Exact figures on casualties are being ascertained," he said.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP's earlier story follows below.

AHMEDABAD, India (AP) — An Air India passenger plane bound for London with more than 240 people on board crashed Thursday in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad, the airline said.

Visuals on local television channels showed smoke billowing from the crash site in what appeared to be a populated area near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city with a population of more than 5 million and the capital of Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state.

Firefighters doused the smoking wreckage of the plane, which would have been fully loaded with fuel shortly after takeoff, and adjacent multi-story buildings with water. Charred bodies lay on the ground.

"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 in a statement.

Modi called the crash "heartbreaking beyond words."

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

The airline said the Gatwick Airport-bound flight was carrying 242 passengers and crew. Of those, Air India said there were 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.

Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, the director general of the directorate of civil aviation, told The Associated Press that Air India flight AI 171, a Boeing 787-8, crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off at 1:38 p.m. local time. He said 244 people were on board and it was not immediately possible to reconcile the discrepancy with Air India's numbers.

All efforts were being made to ensure medical aid and relief support at the site, India's Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu posted on X.

The 787 Dreamliner is a widebody, twin-engine plane. This is the first crash ever 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 aircraft was introduced in 2009 and more than 1,000 have been delivered to dozens of airlines, according to the flightradar24 website.

Air India's chairman, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, said at the moment "our primary focus is on supporting all the affected people and their families."

He said on X that the airline had set up an emergency center and support team for families seeking information about those who were on the flight.

"Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of all those affected by this devastating event," he said.

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 with those in India and those in this country as well," she added.

Britain has very close ties with India. There were nearly 1.9 million people in the country of Indian descent, according to the 2021 U.K. census.

The last major passenger plane crash in India was in 2020 when an Air India Express Boeing-737 skidded off a hilltop runway in southern India, killing 21 people.

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

The crash comes days before the opening of the Paris Air Show, a major aviation expo where Boeing and European rival Airbus will showcase their aircraft and battle for jet orders from airline customers.

Boeing has been in recovery mode for more than six years after Lion Air Flight 610, a Boeing 737 Max 8, plunged into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Five months later, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 Max 8, crashed after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killing 157 passengers and crew members.

Shares of Boeing Co. tumbled nearly 9% before trading opened in the U.S.

[Grey Fox]

It's apparently the 787s first loss of air frame.

[Sheilbh]

Very sad news

On the Boeing thing - in the last year or two I have looked at what planes airlines use and preferring ones that have Airbus fleets. I'm sure it is unfortunate coincidences but it does feel like a lot recently.

[DGuller]

I've always preferred Airbus just because they're more comfortable to fly in.  That said, regardless of what the cause turns out to be, Boeing does seem like a poster boy for enshittification.

[crazy canuck]

Very sad news

On the Boeing thing - in the last year or two I have looked at what planes airlines use and preferring ones that have Airbus fleets. I'm sure it is unfortunate coincidences but it does feel like a lot recently.

Same, we consciously favour airbus flights now

[Jacob]

Tragic

[Sheilbh]

Lots of reporting of really heart-breaking individual stories in the press here. 52 Brits died in the crash - I think the Times have said it's the highest UK death toll in an aviation incident since 9/11. So quite a lot of families issuing statements and sharing photos of their loved ones.

But with it being a London-India flight also lots of Indians who lived here or who were on their way to visit relatives - there was a really sad story about a guy who's lived in London for the last 6 years and was now re-locating his family being on the flight with his wife and three kids.

Also, amazingly, one survivor which seems miraculous to me given the clip I've seen of the plane going down.

[Zoupa]

Any indication of what caused the crash? Couldn't really find anything.

[Jacob]

Any indication of what caused the crash? Couldn't really find anything.

I think it's too early to say at this time. I expect most theories at this point are premature.

[grumbler]

Any indication of what caused the crash? Couldn't really find anything.

Some anomalies include the fact that the gear was still down and it sounded like the Ram Air Turbine was engaged (it deploys automatically when there is any electrical failure). One pilot said that it looked like the flaps had been retracted, which would cause exactly the sort of sinking we saw because the plane lacked the airspeed to fly with no flaps. The plane took off where it would be expected to lift off, so flap were apparently engaged at liftoff. The problem seemed to originate at just the point where the pilots would have retracted the landing gear.

It is possible that the pilots retraced flaps instead of gear? That's pure speculation on the part of the guys I have listened to.

[Bauer]

The survivor jumped out of the emergency exit 

[DGuller]

When I saw that the plane never really climbed, my first thought was that flaps were in the wrong position, but these days shouldn't it be impossible, precisely because too many planes crashed on takeoff like that?  The theory that flaps were retracted instead of the gear sounds more plausible. 

That said, the mayday message was talking about loss of power, and the ram air turbine would deploy if you lose both engines so that you can still operate the bare necessities.  I wonder how easy it is to mistakenly think you lost power when you stop climbing, when the actual culprit is the aerodynamic configuration?

[HVC]

Don't know the veracity but the story going around is that the survivor heard a large bang before the plane started going down.

Another bird strike like the Korean one?

[Bauer]

You would think there should be some automation assistance to avoid obvious human errors - ideally without removing the human entirely.

[Josquius]

Terrible stuff. Crashing into a block full of doctors too...
Only one survivor is very weird and a small positive point. I guess everyone will be trying to select seat 11A on flights now.