Thick black plumes of acrid smoke towered high above India’s Ahmedabad airport yesterday after a London-bound passenger jet with 242 people aboard crashed shortly after takeoff.
Several videos posted on social media, which The Associated Press was not able to immediately verify, showed an aircraft rapidly losing altitude — with its nose up — before it hit a building and exploded into an orange ball of fire.
A reporter in the city said that the plane crashed in an area between a hospital and the city’s Ghoda Camp neighborhood.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Police said that no survivors were expected and more bodies might be found of people on the ground when the jet crashed.
“There appears to be no survivor in the crash,” city police commissioner G.S. Malik told reporters. “And since the airplane has fallen on an area which was residential and had some offices, there are more casualties as well.”
He did not give further details of those killed on the ground.
The Indian Express reported that all 242 on board had died, citing the police.
Authorities said that the plane went down outside the airport perimeter, in a crowded residential area, which local media said included a hostel where medical students and young doctors live.
“When we reached the spot there were several bodies lying around and firefighters were dousing the flames,” Poonam Patni told reporters. “Many of the bodies were burned.”
Another resident, who declined to be named, said: “We saw people from the building jumping from the second and third floor to save themselves. The plane was in flames.”
“We helped people get out of the building and sent the injured to the hospital,” they added.
Air India’s Flight 171 — a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London’s Gatwick Airport — crashed shortly after takeoff at about 1:40pm, officials said.
The passengers were 169 Indian nationals, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian. Two pilots and 10 cabin crew were also aboard.
At the crash site, firefighters could be seen trying to control flames on the burning plane debris that also charred trees.
Photographs released by India’s Central Industrial Security Force, a paramilitary police force, showed a large chunk of the plane that had smashed through the brick and concrete wall of a building.
“I was at home when we heard a massive sound,” one Ahmedabad resident told Press Trust of India. “When we went out to see what had happened, there was a layer of thick smoke in the air. When we came here, dead bodies and debris from the crashed aircraft were scattered all over.”
Additional reporting by Reuters
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
A Chinese ship ran aground in stormy weather in shallow waters off a Philippines-controlled island in the disputed South China Sea, prompting Filipino forces to go on alert, Philippine military officials said yesterday. When Philippine forces assessed that the Chinese fishing vessel appeared to have run aground in the shallows east of Thitu Island (Jhongye Island, 中業島) on Saturday due to bad weather, Philippine military and coast guard personnel deployed to provide help, but later saw that the ship had been extricated, Philippine navy regional spokesperson Ellaine Rose Collado said. No other details were immediately available, including if there were injuries among
RSS