Over 100 people were killed when an Air India plane bound for London with 242 people on board crashed minutes after taking off from India’s western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, with the toll expected to rise, authorities said.
The plane was headed for Gatwick Airport, south of the British capital, Air India said, while police officers said it crashed in a doctors’ hostel near the airport.
“The building on which it has crashed is a doctors’ hostel… we have cleared almost 70 percent to 80 percent of the area and will clear the rest soon,” a senior police officer told reporters.
Authorities said the plane crashed on top of the dining area of the Medical College hostel, killing many medical students as well.
More than 100 bodies, most of them badly charred, had been brought to the local government hospital for autopsy, police said.
The passengers included 217 adults, 11 children and two infants, a source told Reuters.
Of them, 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian, Air India said.
“At this moment, we are ascertaining the details and will share further updates,” Air India said on X. “The injured are being taken to the nearest hospitals.”
The crash occurred just after the plane took off, television channels reported. One channel showed the plane taking off over a residential area and then disappearing from the screen before a huge jet of fire could be seen rising into the sky from beyond the houses.
Visuals also showed debris on fire, with thick black smoke rising into the sky near the airport.
They also showed people being moved in stretchers and being taken away in ambulances.
–Reuters
