A camera has captured footage of the moment an Air India flight carrying 242 passengers and crew members crashed in the city of Ahmedabad shortly after taking off this morning.
The shaky footage, which appears to be a recording of a CCTV video, shows the plane flying low and struggling to pull up as it loses altitude. The aircraft disappears below the city’s skyline followed by a fiery explosion.
So far there is little information about survivors other than India’s health ministry stating that “many people” have died.
The airplane, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, took off from Ahmedabad, a city in western India, at 1:40 P.M. on Tuesday carrying 169 Indian citizens, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian.
The Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, the airliner’s point of origin, has been closed in the aftermath of the crash. Air India Flight 171 had been scheduled to land at London Gatwick Airport at 6.25 P.M.
The New York Times reports that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner has no previously recorded fatal crashes. However, it has experienced operational problems that have resulted in injuries to passengers.
Air India’s Boeing 787-8 struggles to gain altitude shortly after departing Ahmedabad bound for London. It seems to stall and crashes into a residential area. The plane, a Boeing 788 was never involved in a fatal crash until today. pic.twitter.com/ppnLTpirQu
— Josh Cahill (@gotravelyourway) June 12, 2025
Aviation experts have said the pilot of flight AI171 did make a mayday call before the crash. “There shouldn’t have been a problem in taking off, especially not with a Dreamliner. It’s got a pretty good track record,” aviation expert Julian Bray tells Sky News.
Rescue teams are attending the scene of the crash and a corridor has been set up to speedily transport any injured people to the hospital for treatment.
“Shocked and devastated to learn about the flight crash in Ahmedabad,” writes India’s minister of civil aviation, Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu on social media. “We are on the highest alert.”
The chairman of Air India, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, says his company is focusing on “supporting all the affected people and their families” and that it was doing all it could to assist the emergency response teams at the site.
