Dreamliner Disaster: At least 260 people dead in India's worst aviation tragedy

An Air India Dreamliner crashed in Ahmedabad, killing at least 260 people, marking India's worst aviation disaster in 30 years. One survivor remains.

At least 260 people were killed when an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick crashed 33 seconds after taking off on Thursday afternoon and rammed into a medical college hostel, marking the worst air tragedy in the country in three decades.

Fire and Emergency Services personnel at work following the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, on Thursday. (PTI)

The government didn’t release official figures of casualties but Union home minister Amit Shah confirmed that only one of the 242 people on board – 230 passengers and 12 crew members – survived; police commissioner Vidhi Chaudhary said the toll stood at 260 people, suggesting that more people died when the jet ploughed into a medical staff hostel in a blazing fireball. Officials said at least 50 more students were injured in the hostel.

Thick plumes of black smoke billowed from the debris of AI-171 at the crash site roughly 3kmfrom the Ahmedabad airport premises even as visuals showed heaps of charred bodies laying on the ground and parts of the mangled fuselage scattered in the mud.

“The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us. It is heartbreaking beyond words,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on X. Shah and civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu rushed to Ahmedabad to oversee relief-and-rescue operations. Among those dead was former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani.

The aircraft – which carried almost a full load of 125,000 litres of fuel – entered a slow descent shortly after taking off at 1.38pm, with its landing gear still extended before exploding into a huge fireball upon impact. The twin-engine plane had reached an altitude of 625 feet (190.5 meters) at a speed of 174 knots, according to data from Flightradar24.

“As soon as the flight took off, within 30 seconds it crashed. There was no warning from the pilot or the crew members about the crash. When I found myself alive after the crash, I saw bodies ripped apart…My leg was injured but I ran as fast as I could,” said Viswash Kumar Ramesh, the lone survivor of the crash who was in seat 11A.

At the crash site, the tail cone of the aircraft with damaged stabilizer fins still attached to it was lodged near the top of the BJ Medical College building. Parts of the jet appeared to have slammed into the dining hall and mess of the institution.

“While four MBBS students living in the hostel died, 19 were injured. Five of them are serious. Two third-year students are untraceable,” college dean Minakshi Parikh told reporters.“A doctor’s wife was also killed.”

Air India said the passengers included 169 Indians, 53 British, 7 Portuguese and one Canadian. The flight was operated by captain Sumit Sabharwal, a resident of Mumbai who had 8,200 flight hours under his belt, along with first officer Clive Kunder, a resident of Mumbai who had 1,100 flight hours of training.

“I heard a loud thud. I thought it was an earthquake but when I ran outside, I saw parts of a plane and lots of smoke,” said MS Prajapati, 45, who lives 200 metres away from the crash site. “For the next hour, I couldn’t see anything…the sky was black,” added Parajapti, who works as a driver at a private firm.

Large chunks of the plane’s wing were seen lying on the road, its inner green frame exposed and twisted, while other parts of the wreckage struck the hostel building itself. The buildings, tall dark grey structures with a modern façade, bore visible damage. Smoke stains scarred parts of the exterior, while several upper-floor windows were shattered. Scorched trees lined the area, their branches blackened from the fireball that followed the crash.

Naidu said, “Just visited the crash site in Ahmedabad what I witnessed was deeply distressing. I’m on the ground, closely reviewing rescue and relief efforts.Teams from DGCA, AAI, Air India, NDRF, and local administration are working round-the-clock. We’re doing everything we can to support the victims and their families in this tragic hour.”

The families of those aboard the plane were shrouded in grief and shock.

“Neeraj had called me on Thursday morning and informed me that he was in the cab on the way to Ahmedabad with his wife Aparna because both were to board the flight for London later in the day. They were on holiday and excited, but by evening all changed,” said Satish Lavania, a resident of Agra who lost two members of his family.

HT spoke to multiple experts on the possible scenarios that may have unfolded in the moments before the crash and while each of them cautioned that early clues were insufficient to draw conclusions, they agreed that the profile of the flight in its final moments — maintaining a nose-up attitude while descending – was consistent with sudden, severe power loss.

It was the first fatal 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.

A senior state government official confirmed that the aircraft first struck a tree before hitting the first building of the hostel complex, then slamming into a second building where it broke apart. The impact caused the roofs of both buildings to collapse, injuring several undergraduate and postgraduate medical students who were present during lunch hour.

As night fell, rescuers raced against time to sift through the wreckage to identify and pull bodies out. ”Six of our teams are at the spot. They are working with the other agencies on the ground. If need be, more teams will be pressed to the spot,” said NS Bundela, inspector general of the National Disaster Relief Force.

Condolences and offers of support poured in from around the world. The US National Transportation Safety Board said it would lead a team of U.S. investigators travelling to India to help in the investigation. “I let them know, anything we can do, we’ll be over there immediately,” US President Donald Trump said.

Britain was 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. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said images emerging of the crash were “devastating”, and that he was being kept informed as the situation developed.

The last fatal plane crash in India, the world’s third largest aviation market and its fastest growing, 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.

The last time India suffered a tragedy of this magnitude was in 1996, when a Saudia Boeing 747 (Flight SV 763) climbing from Delhi collided mid-air with a descending Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 (Flight KZ 1907). All 349 passengers and crew aboard both planes perished — the deadliest mid-air collision in aviation history.