Ahmedabad plane crash: 204 bodies recovered from accident site, says city police chief

Ahmedabad police chief G S Malik said these could include both the passengers onboard the plane and the people killed on the ground.

Hours after an Air India plane crashed outside the perimeter of the Ahmedabad airport, city police commissioner G S Malik said that 204 bodies had been recovered from the site of the accident.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into the residential quarters of the B J Medical College in Ahmedabad's Meghaninagar.(AP)

Malik told Reuters that these could include both the passengers onboard the plane and the people killed on the ground. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which lost altitude five minutes after takeoff from Runway 23 of the Sardar Vallabhbhai International Airport, crashed into the residential quarters of the B J Medical College in Ahmedabad's Meghaninagar.

The flight, which was carrying 242 people – 230 passengers and 12 crew members, including two pilots – was flying from Ahmedabad to the London Gatwick Airport. The plane lost altitude after signalling an emergency through a ‘Mayday’ call. This is the first crash for a Boeing Dreamliner aircraft. The accident caused a disruption in the flight operations at Ahmedabad airport, which resumed after a brief halt.

Victims' identification through DNA samples

DNA tests will be carried out to determine the identity of the victims of the crash, PTI reported, quoting a senior Gujarat health department official. The Ahmedabad Civil Hospital has made arrangements to collect the DNA samples for identification, the official added.

Principal secretary of the state's health department, Dhananjay Dwivedi, said that the DNA samples will be collected at the Kasoti Bhavan of the Civil Hospital. He added that these can be submitted by close relatives of the victims, like the parents or children of those onboard the plane.

“Families and close relatives of the flight passengers, especially their parents and children, are requested to submit their samples at the location so that the victims can be identified at the earliest,” ANI quoted Dwivedi as saying. He further said that 50 persons, who were injured on the ground, had been admitted to the Civil Hospital, adding that most of them were in stable condition.