Rescue workers searched for missing people and aircraft parts in the charred buildings of a medical college hostel in Ahmedabad on Friday after an Air India plane crash killed more than 240 people in the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with 242 people on board bound for Gatwick Airport south of London took off over a residential area and then disappeared from view before a huge fireball was seen rising into the sky from beyond the houses, CCTV footage showed.
Only one passenger survived after it crashed into the hostel during lunch hour, causing deaths on the ground as well, which local media has put as high as 24. Reuters could not immediately verify the number.
Rescue workers had completed combing the crash site and were now searching for missing people and bodies in the buildings as well as for aircraft parts that could help explain why the plane crashed soon after taking off.
Local newspaper Hindustan Times reported that one of the two black boxes from the plane had been found. Reuters could not verify the report, and the paper did not say whether the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder had been recovered.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi was briefed by officials on the progress of rescue operations when he visited the crash site in his home state of Gujarat on Friday. Modi also met some of the injured being treated in the hospital.
“The scene of devastation is saddening,” he said in a post on X.
Residents living in the vicinity said that construction of the hostel for resident doctors was completed only a year ago and the buildings were not fully occupied.
“We were at home and heard a massive sound, it appeared like a big blast. We then saw very dark smoke which engulfed the entire area,” said 63-year-old Nitin Joshi, who has been living in the area for more than 50 years.
Parts of the plane’s fuselage were scattered around the smouldering building into which it crashed. The tail of the plane was stuck on top of the building.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that an investigation into the crash was focusing on “whether the aircraft had a loss or reduction in engine thrust”, citing unnamed sources. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the report.
Air India Chief Executive Officer Campbell Wilson also arrived in Ahmedabad in the early hours of Friday.
The company said the lone survivor, a British national, was undergoing treatment in the hospital.
The man told Indian media how he had heard a loud noise shortly after Flight AI171 took off.
Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer, said on Thursday the death toll was more than 240, revising down a previous toll of 294 as it included body parts that had been double-counted.
The dead included Vijay Rupani, the former chief minister of Gujarat state, of which Ahmedabad is the main city.
“Almost 70% of the passengers were found in their seats, most of them had their seatbelts on,” a first responder told the local newspaper Indian Express.
Air India has said the investigation would take time. Planemaker Boeing has said a team of experts is ready to go to India to help in the probe.
While Air India is not publicly traded, shares of rival airline IndiGo parent Interglobe Aviation and SpiceJet were both down 4% in early Friday trade.
Boeing’s shares fell 5% in the crash’s wake on Thursday.
It was the first crash for the Dreamliner, a wide-body airliner that began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.
The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said.
The last fatal plane crash in India, the world’s third-largest aviation market and its fastest-growing, was in 2020 and involved Air India Express, the airline’s low-cost arm.
The formerly state-owned Air India was taken over by Indian conglomerate Tata Group in 2022, and merged with Vistara, a joint venture between the group and Singapore Airlines, in 2024.
