Shortly after takeoff on thursday afternoon, an air india flight bound for london crashed close to the ahmedabad airport. There were 242 individuals on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, comprising 12 crew members and 230 passengers. The air was covered in dense black smoke, according to images taken from the Meghani area where the plane landed.
 

Online flight trackers identified the flight as air india 171, which was scheduled to depart from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai patel international airport at 1:10 pm and arrive at Gatwick airport in London. After the incident, seven fire engines and other emergency personnel raced to the scene.

Air india confirmed the incident in a statement on X. "Flight AI171, operating Ahmedabad-London Gatwick, was involved in an incident today, 12 june 2025. At this moment, we are ascertaining the details and will share further updates at the earliest," the post read.

Flightradar24, an aviation tracker, states that the Boeing 787-8 passenger airplane was registered under the registration VT-ANB.  Earlier in the day, the jet had taken off from delhi and arrived in Ahmedabad.
 
Sources claim that Vijay Rupani, the former chief minister of Gujarat, was on the aircraft.
 
The horrifying crash was confirmed in a statement released by the Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGCA).  The air Traffic Control (ATC) received a mayday call from the copilot.  The airplane did not respond after that.

"There were 242 persons on board the aircraft consisting of 2 pilots and 10 cabin crew. The aircraft was under the command of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, with First Officer Clive Kundar. Captain Sumeet Sabharwal is a LTC with 8,200 hours of experience. The co-pilot had 1100 hours of flying experience. As per ATC, the aircraft departed from Ahmadabad at 1339 IST (0809 UTC) from runway 23. It gave a MAYDAY Call to ATC, but thereafter no response was given by the aircraft to the calls made by ATC. Aircraft Immediately after departure from Runway 23, fell on ground outside the airport perimeter. Heavy black smoke was seen coming from the accident site," the DGCA added. 



 
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SIBY JEYYA

12/06/2025 02:56 PM