Air India crash: British man the sole survivor of crash which killed more than 260 people
Firefighters work at the site of an airplane that crashed in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, Thursday, June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)
At least 260 people have been killed after an Air India plane bound for London crashed minutes after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, authorities said, in the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade.
The plane came down in a residential area, crashing onto a medical college hostel outside the airport during lunch hour. It was headed for Gatwick Airport, south of London.
According to Air India, a 40-year-old British-Indian man, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, was the sole survivor among the 242 people on board.
Mr Ramesh, who lives in London, had been visiting family in the area.
"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," he told the .
"Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital."
Police have said that previously shared death toll of 294, which included casualties on the ground, was wrong due to some double-counted body parts. According to local police commissioner Vidhi Chaudhary, the current death toll is now 260.
Air India says the flight was departing from Ahmedabad Airport with 242 people on board the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, including two pilots and ten crew. 169 passengers were Indian nationals, 53 were British, seven were Portuguese, and one was Canadian.
Tata Group, the parent company of Air India, said it would provide 10 million rupees (€100,896) to the families of those who were killed in the crash.
The company said it would also cover the medical costs of those injured and provide support in the “building up” of the medical college the plane crashed into.
India's CNN News-18 TV channel said the plane crashed on top of the dining area of the state-run BJ Medical College hostel, killing many medical students as well. It showed a visual of a portion of the aircraft perched atop the building.
Rescue workers said that at least 30 to 35 bodies had been recovered from the site and that more people were trapped. Divyansh Singh, vice president of the Federation of All India Medical Association, told AP at least five medical students had been killed and around 50 were injured after the plane collided with the college.
A video of the incident circulating online shows the Air India aircraft flying over a residential area before crashing, creating what appears to be a huge fireball followed by large plumes of black smoke.
Images of the aftermath of the crash showed parts of the plane embedded into a residential building as firefighters continued to tackle the smoke.
Pieces of the aircraft’s landing gear, fuselage and tail could all be seen protruding from the building.
Thursday's crash comes in proximity to the 40th anniversary of the Air India Toronto-New Delhi crash, which happened off the Kerry/West Cork coast on June 23, 1985.
A bomb placed on board the Air India flight 182 by Sikh militants exploded and plunged into the Atlantic. All 329 passengers and crew were killed. The flight was travelling from Toronto and had a first stopover in Montreal, and was due for a second stopover in London Heathrow before reaching its final destination of New Delhi.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said his thoughts are with those affected by the crash, saying it brought his mind the 1985 disaster.
"I think it is horrific and very, very sad what has happened. Our thoughts and our prayers are with the families of those bereaved and with people of India, Britain and Canada.
"The world is a much closer place — we all travel — and it is extremely sad and shocking that an accident of this scale has occurred with the loss of so much life. It's not so long away from the commemoration of the Air India disaster in Ireland 40 years ago. You know, all of us who experienced that had a sense of the trauma that people go through when crashes of this kind occur."
Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the London-bound plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service.
It was the first crash for the Dreamliner, which began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said.
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 rose into the sky from beyond the houses.
Visuals also showed debris on fire, with thick black smoke rising up into the sky near the airport.
They also showed people being moved in stretchers and being taken away in ambulances.
"My sister-in-law was going to London. Within an hour, I got news that the plane had crashed," Poonam Patel, a relative of one of the passengers, told news agency ANI at the government hospital in Ahmedabad.
Ramila, the mother of a student at the medical college, told ANI her son had gone to the hostel for his lunch break when the plane crashed. "My son is safe, and I have spoken to him. He jumped from the second floor, so he suffered some injuries," she said.
According to air traffic control at Ahmedabad Airport, the aircraft departed at 1.39pm (8.09am Irish time) from runway 23. It gave a "Mayday" call, signalling an emergency, but thereafter there was no response from the aircraft.
Flightradar24 also said that it received the last signal from the aircraft seconds after it took off.
"The aircraft involved is a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with registration VT-ANB," it said.
US aerospace safety consultant Anthony Brickhouse said one problematic sign from videos of the aircraft was that the landing gear was down at a phase of flight when it would typically be up.
“If you didn't know what was happening, you would think that plane was on approach to a runway,” Brickhouse said.
Boeing said it is aware of initial reports and is working to gather more information. Boeing, opens new tab shares fell 6.8% to $199.13 in pre-market trade.
Britain is working with Indian authorities to urgently establish the facts around the crash and to provide support to those involved, the country's foreign office said in a statement posted on its website.
The Indian aviation minister's office said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had directed it to ensure all support was extended to the rescue efforts immediately.
All relevant agencies were on high alert, and coordinated efforts were underway, the aviation minister's office added.
Ahmedabad is the main city in Modi's home state of Gujarat.
Ahmedabad airport said it had suspended all flight operations with immediate effect. The airport is operated by India's Adani Group conglomerate.
"We are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragedy of Air India Flight 171," Gautam Adani, founder and chairman of the group, posted on X.
"Our hearts go out to the families who have suffered an unimaginable loss. We are working closely with all authorities and extending full support to the families on the ground," he said.
The last fatal plane crash in India was in 2020 and involved Air India Express, the airline's low-cost arm.
The airline's Boeing 737 overshot a "table-top" runway at Kozhikode International Airport in southern India. The plane skidded off the runway, plunging into a valley and crashing nose-first into the ground.
Twenty-one people were killed in that crash.
The formerly state-owned Air India was taken over by Indian conglomerate Tata Group in 2022, and merged with Vistara - a joint venture between the group and Singapore Airlines, in 2024.
Tata said an emergency centre had been activated and a support team set up for families seeking information.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
