Last night, devastating news broke that an Air India plane destined for London Gatwick came crashing down moments after takeoff. A total of 242 people are said to have been onboard, including 169 Indian nationals, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian.
Adding to the catastrophe, the plane crashed into a Medical College and Hospital hostel, where several students are said to have died as a result. Currently, the death toll is estimated to stand at more than 290 people.
Just four days before the crash took place, the plane on Sunday night, aircraft VT-ANB, flew into Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport as flight AI308. It departed at 11:18pm the same night.
After returning to Delhi from Melbourne, the plane flew to Tokyo and Paris on return flights before setting off on its doomed flight from Ahmedabad.
In his first official statement since the tragic crash of Air India flight AI171 in Ahmedabad, the airline’s Chief Executive Officer Campbell Wilson expressed profound grief and pledged full support to the victims and their families.
“I would like to express deep sorrow about this event. This is a difficult day for all of us at Air India,” Wilson said in a video message.
Support for passengers and families
Wilson assured that Air India is focusing all efforts on assisting those directly impacted by the crash. “Our efforts are focused entirely on the needs of our passengers, crew members, their families and loved ones,” he said.
He added that a dedicated team has been dispatched to provide on-ground assistance.
“A special team of caregivers from Air India is on their way to Ahmedabad to provide additional support,” he said.
“We understand that people are eager for information and please know that we will continue to share accurate and timely information as soon as we can. Anything we report must be factual and not speculative. We owe that to everyone involved,” he said.
Are there any survivors?
Miraculously, one man walked free from the wreckage. Clips circulating on social media show Ramesh Viswashkumar, 40, walking into an ambulance with minor physical injuries. The British father was reportedly flying with his younger brother who is yet to be accounted for.
“Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise,” he is reported as saying in The New Indian Express. “There were dead bodies around me. I got scared. I got up and ran. There were pieces of the plane everywhere.”
Ramesh’s boarding pass shows he was seated in seat 11A, on the first row of economy, right next to the exit.
RECAP: What happened?
The Boeing 787‑8 Dreamliner operating as Flight AI 171 from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick lifted off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 13:38 local time, climbing to an altitude of approximately 625 feet.
Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, who had more than 8200 hours in the air, desperately launched a mayday call just 11 seconds after takeoff. He warned that the plane was “losing power”.
Moments later, the plane descended into the Meghani Nagar neighbourhood, reportedly striking the airport perimeter wall.
Emergency responders, including firefighters, police, and medical teams, rushed to the scene amid large plumes of smoke visible across the city. India’s Civil Aviation Minister, Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, confirmed that multi‑agency rescue efforts were underway and pledged full support to families.
What caused the crash?
This is the first crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. The cause of the crash is not yet known; however, experts from India, the US, and the UK will be gathering in the coming days to find out what happened. Boeing has also launched an investigation.
Some experts have speculated that it might have been a rare case of simultaneous engine failure. This is a highly rare event, one example of which was the famous “Miracle on the Hudson” incident in 2009 when a US Airways Airbus A320 lost both engines to a bird strike before miraclously landing safely on the Hudson river.
Aviation expert Guy Hirst told the ABC that it could have been a bird strike due to the location of the crash.
“Possibly bird strikes … Ahmedabad does suffer quite a lot from flocks of birds, and although they’ve been doing quite a lot at the airport to try and reduce the possibilities, that is always a possibility,” he said.
“I think probably the most likely is a bird strike or some sort of fuel starvation that caused both engines to lose power at a ridiculously critical timing.”
2025 will be the deadliest year for air travel in a decade
We might only be six months into the year, but 2025 has already been touted as the deadliest year for aviation in a decade. Globally, the number of civil aviation deaths is said to have reached more than 460 in 2025 according to Jan-Arwed Richter, founder of JACDEC. The average each year in the past decade is 284.
“This year still has more than six months to go, so this could be concerning if this rate of fatal accidents would go on,” Richter is quoted as saying.
Other high-profile accidents that have taken place this year include American Airlines Group Flight 5342, which collided with an Army helicopter near Washington. A total of 67 people died.
The Air India flight is on track to be the worst commercial airline disaster since MH17 in 2014.
Will fewer people fly as a result?
It has been well documented that high-profile plane crashes can lead more people to be afraid of flying. Following the aforementioned American Airlines incident, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 64 per cent of US adults considered flying to be ‘very safe’ or ‘somewhat safe’, which was down from 71 per cent the year before. The number who considered flying to unsafe increased to 20 per cent from 12 per cent.
Earlier this year, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian also admitted that sales had been down following a number of high-profile crashes
“It caused a lot of shock among consumers,” he said at a JPMorgan Chase investors conference.
