The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with 242 people on board, headed to Gatwick Airport south of London, took off yesterday over a residential area and disappeared from view, crashing into a dormitory building of the Medina College in a densely populated area.
Only one passenger survived, a British citizen, who told Indian media that he heard a loud noise shortly after takeoff.
According to local media reports, 24 people on the ground also died, writes Reuters.
Rescuers have completed combing the crash site and are now searching for missing people and bodies in the buildings, as well as parts of the aircraft that could help explain why the plane fell shortly after takeoff. Local media reported that one of the plane's two black boxes was found.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the crash site in his home state of Gujarat on Friday. Modi also met with some of the injured who are being treated in the hospital.
Residents living nearby told the agency that the dormitory for resident doctors was completed just a year ago, and the buildings were not fully occupied.
Indian TV channel NDTV reported that New Delhi is considering suspending flights of Air India's Dreamliner fleet for safety checks. Air India has more than 30 Dreamliner aircraft, including the Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 versions.
According to the Aviation Safety Network database, this is the first Dreamliner accident since the wide-body aircraft began commercial flights in 2011. The plane that crashed on Thursday first flew in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, reports Flightradar24.
Among the passengers were 169 Indian citizens, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian.
Senior state police officer Vidhi Chaudhary stated on Thursday that the death toll exceeded 240 people, revising the previous number of 294, as it included body parts that were counted twice.
"Almost 70% of the passengers were found in their seats, most of them with seat belts fastened," a rescuer told the local newspaper Indian Express.
The last fatal aviation accident in India — the third-largest aviation market in the world and the fastest-growing — occurred in 2020 with an Air India Express plane, the airline's budget division.
Photo: Reuters