AHMEDABAD, India — One passenger survived the crash of an Air India plane bound for London that killed at least 240 people Thursday in Ahmedabad, one of India’s worst airline disasters in decades, officials said.
The death toll includes medical students who were in a college hostel when the plane hit the building shortly after takeoff, said Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer in the northwestern city.
“Most of the bodies have been charred beyond recognition,” she said.
Indian Home Minister Amit Shah confirmed that a single passenger survived the crash and said he met him at the hospital. A doctor said he had examined the survivor, whom he identified as Vishwashkumar Ramesh.
“He was disoriented with multiple injuries all over his body,” Dr. Dhaval Gameti told The Associated Press. “But he seems to be out of danger.”
Black smoke billowed from the site where the plane crashed and burst into flames near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city of more than 5 million and the capital of Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state.
Firefighters doused the smoking wreckage of the plane, which would have been fully loaded with fuel shortly after takeoff, and adjacent multistory buildings with water. Charred bodies lay on the ground and parts of the fuselage were scattered around the site. Indian army teams were assisting civil authorities to clear debris and help treat the injured.
A video on social media showed the jet slowly descending as if it were landing. As soon as it disappeared out of view behind rows of houses, a giant fireball filled the sky. The AP was able to verify the video by matching up the flight path of the plane from the runway with the crash site and the nearby residential area.
At the crash site, the tail cone of the aircraft with damaged stabilizer fins still attached to it was lodged near the top of one of the buildings.
In a social media post, Mr. Modi called the crash “heartbreaking beyond words” and said “my thoughts are with everyone affected.”
Sambit Patra, a lawmaker from Mr. Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said Gujarat’s former chief minister, Vijay Rupani, was among the dead.
Divyansh Singh, vice president of the Federation of All India Medical Association, said at least five students from the medical college were killed on the ground and 50 others were injured. Singh said some of them were in critical condition and many people are “feared buried in the debris.”
Air India said the flight bound for London Gatwick Airport was carrying 242 passengers and crew, with 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian aboard. The Boeing 787-8 crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off at 1:38 p.m, Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, the director general of the directorate of civil aviation, told AP.
It was the first crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. Boeing said it was “working to gather more information.”
Boeing has been in recovery mode for more than six years after Lion Air Flight 610, a Boeing 737 Max 8, plunged into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Five months later, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 Max 8, crashed after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killing 157 passengers and crew members.
Shares of Boeing Co. tumbled nearly 9% before trading opened in the U.S.
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