Air India crash: What we know so far after flight heading to London Gatwick crashes in western India
Here’s what we know so far after a flight bound for London Gatwick crashed shortly after taking off in Ahmedabad this morning (Thursday, June 12).
Air India flight AI171 was scheduled to depart from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, bound for London Gatwick, at 9.50am local time, according to aviation tracker FlightRadar24.
You can read the full story here.
Here’s what we know so far.
- The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which was carrying 242 passengers and crew members on board, lost signal ‘just seconds after take off’
- The police chief in Ahmedabad says there appears to be no survivors from the plane crash, according to reports from the AFP and AP news agencies
- Of the passengers on board, there were 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, one Canadian national and seven Portuguese nationals
- The Air India flight crashed in a 'civilian area'
- Gatwick Airport confirmed the plane travelling from Ahmedabad was due to land at 6.25pm UK time
- Ahmedabad Airport has resumed operations with limited flights, it said in a post on X
- India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Air India plane crash had ‘stunned and saddened’ the country, and was ‘heartbreaking beyond words’
- UK Foreign Minister David Lammy said he was ‘deeply saddened’ by the news of the crash in Ahmedabad – and confirmed the UK was working with Indian authorities to ‘urgently establish the facts and provide support’