Air India flight to London carrying 242 people crashes in Ahmedabad

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An Air India flight to London Gatwick has crashed in Ahmedabad in western India shortly after take-off, with 242 people on board.

Air India said that those on the Boeing 787-8 aircraft included 169 Indian nationals, as well as 53 British citizens, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. There were also 10 cabin crew and two pilots.

India’s health minister Jagat Prakash Nadda said that “many people” had been killed in the crash, but he did not give a precise number.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was more than 10 years old, according to Flightradar24, which added that after reaching an altitude of 625 feet, the aircraft began to descend with a vertical speed of 475 feet per minute.

Rohan Krishnan, head of Indian doctors’ association Faima, said the flight crashed into the BJ Medical College in Ahmedabad, adding that some students had been taken to hospital.

The incident marks the first time a 787 has crashed, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.

Boeing shares were down 7 per cent in pre-market trading on Thursday.

The company is battling to restore confidence in the safety of its planes after two fatal crashes of its 737 Max aircraft in 2018 and 2019. Last week, it confirmed it would pay $1.1bn to avoid prosecution over the crashes, but families of the 346 victims are fighting the agreement in court.

In 2024, a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max during a flight. The incident prompted an emergency landing, and the US Federal Aviation Administration ordered the temporary grounding of some aircraft.

Boeing said on Thursday: “We are aware of initial reports and are working to gather more information.”

Police in Gujarat state told the Financial Times that the plane crashed “within 10 minutes” of taking off from the airport in Ahmedabad.

The Indian aviation regulator said the aircraft made a mayday call to air traffic control “but thereafter no response was given by the aircraft to the calls made by ATC”.

Ahmedabad airport was subsequently closed.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer wrote on X on Thursday: “The scenes emerging of a London-bound plane carrying many British nationals crashing in the Indian city of Ahmedabad are devastating.”

“My thoughts are with the passengers and their families at this deeply distressing time,” he added.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us. It is heartbreaking beyond words.”

Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chair of Tata, which took over the airline from state control in 2022, said: “With profound sorrow I confirm that Air India Flight 171 operating Ahmedabad London Gatwick was involved in a tragic accident today.”

Tata had promised to modernise the carrier, and, in 2023, Air India agreed a deal with Boeing and Airbus to buy 470 new aircraft, one of the largest orders in aviation history.

John Strickland, an aviation consultant, said Boeing’s 787 had a “good in-service safety record”, adding that it was “too early to speculate on the likely cause” of the accident.

Air India had faced the “challenges of decades of state ownership and poor management”, said Strickland.

However, he said that since being sold to Tata, experienced management had been brought in and the carrier “had begun to move in the right direction both operationally and commercially”.