An Air India aircraft with 242 individuals on board crashed Thursday close to a serious worldwide airport within the western Indian metropolis of Ahmedabad, the airline and the nation’s authorities mentioned.
Footage posted to social media shortly after the crash and verified by NBC Information, exhibits plumes of thick black smoke rising into the sky from a civilian location to the south of the airport.
The flight was carrying 242 passengers and crew onboard. Amongst them had been together with 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, 1 Canadian nationwide and seven Portuguese nationals, the airline mentioned in a press release. “The injured are being taken to the closest hospitals,” it added.
It was not instantly clear what number of passengers had died aboard the flight that was scheduled to depart at 1:10 p.m. native time (3:40 a.m. ET), and anticipated to land in London at 18:25 p.m. native time (1:25 p.m. ET).
“Shocked and devastated to study in regards to the flight crash in Ahmedabad,” mentioned Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, India’s civil aviation minister mentioned in a post on X. “I’m personally monitoring the state of affairs and have directed all aviation and emergency response companies to take swift and coordinated motion.”
“Rescue groups have been mobilized, and all efforts are being made to make sure medical assist and reduction help are being rushed to the positioning,” he added. “My ideas and prayers are with all these on board and their households.”
London’s Gatwick airport confirmed the crash in a post on X. “We are able to affirm that flight AI171 that crashed on departure from Ahmedabad Airport right now was as a consequence of land at London Gatwick at 18:25,” it mentioned.
The plane concerned is a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, in line with flight monitoring web site Flightradar24, which mentioned it acquired the final sign from the plane simply seconds after takeoff.
Airplane crashes are usually not frequent in India, which boasts some of the world’s strictest air standards after being rattled by a collection of bombings and hijackings from the Seventies to Nineteen Nineties.
The crash plummeted the Boeing inventory, which in pre-market buying and selling was down over 17%.
As soon as a state-owned airline, Air India got here underneath the management of the Indian-conglomerate, Tata Group, whose chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran mentioned an emergency middle has been activated for relations in search of data.
“Our major focus is on supporting all of the affected individuals and their households,” he mentioned in a press release posted on X.
This can be a creating story. Please examine again for additional updates.
Jay Ganglani and Reuters
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