Air India Dreamliner goes down in Ahmedabad: History of airline's crashes

An Air India plane carrying over 250 passengers has crashed in Ahmedabad. The Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner, travelling from Ahmedabad to London, crashed after take-off. Visuals of the crash on social media showed thick plumes of smoke wafting from the site. At least 40 people have been killed. Let's take a closer look at Air India's history of crashes read more
An Air India plane carrying over 250 passengers has crashed in Ahmedabad. Representational image. PTI
An Air India plane carrying over 250 passengers has crashed in Ahmedabad.
The Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner, traveling from Ahmedabad to London, crashed during take-off.
Visuals of the crash on social media showed thick plumes of smoke wafting from the site.
Emergency services have been rushed to the area.
At least 40 people have been killed, according to reports.
This is the first major Dreamliner crash anywhere in the world.
But how often have Air India planes crashed in the past?
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Let's take a closer look:
Kozhikode crash 2020
On August 7, 2020, Air India Express Boeing 737 crashed in Kozikode after spinning off the tabletop runway and falling into a gorge.
The plane, which was inbound from Dubai, was part of the Vande Bharat programme in which Indians were being repatriated from abroad amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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Being piloted by Wing Commander Deepak Vasant Sathe and Captain Akhilesh Kumar, the plane had 191 aboard.
On August 7, 2020, Air India Express Boeing 737 crashed in Kozikode after spinning off the tabletop runway. PTI
The craft circled the airport several times and made two attempts to land on a runway that was slick with heavy rain.
The incident left 21 dead including both pilots.
Mangaluru crash 2010
On May 22, 2010, Air India Express Flight 812 crashed in Tannirbhavi near Mangaluru while landing.
The Boeing 737-800 craft with 166 passengers and crew overshot the table-top runway, spun off and hit and instrument landing system structure.
In all, one hundred and fifty-eight passengers were killed.
Twelve of the victims could not be identified and were given a mass funeral.
Just eight survived the accident.
The crash remains one of India's worst aviation disasters in recent history.
Experts say table-top runways are particularly difficult to navigate for pilots as they create an optical illusion – which could easily result in a pilot overshooting the landing target.
Kanishka bombing 1985
'Kanishka' Flight 182 was a tragedy – the worst terror aviation attack involving India.
The Boeing 747-237B, which was traveling from Montreal to New Delhi on 23 June 1985, exploded off the coast of Ireland.
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It was just 45 minutes away from its scheduled stopover at Heathrow Airport.
All 329 aboard, a majority of them Canadians of Indian descent, were killed.
The explosion was caused by a bomb smuggled onto the plane in a suitcase.
The incident was orchestrated by Sikh separatists seeking revenge for the Indian army's deadly 1984 assault on the Golden Temple in Punjab.
It brought relations between India and Canada to a low.
Arabian Sea 1978
On January 1, 1978, Air India Flight 855 went down off the Mumbai coast and into the Arabian Sea.
The flight headed to Dubai had taken off from Santacruz Airport in Mumbai at 8:00 pm when the crash occurred.
This came after the flight witnessed instrument failure – which resulted in spatial disorientation for the pilot and crew.
All 213 on board including passengers and crew were killed instantly.
Arabian Sea 1976
On October 12, 1976, Air India Flight 171 crashed after taking off from Bombay Airport.
The plane, a Caravelle, was headed to Madras when its engine caught on fire.
The plane had 95 aboard including 89 passengers and six crew.
Switzerland crash in 1966
On January 24, 1966, Air India Flight 101 crashed into Mont Blanc mountains.
The plane, a Boeing (Kanchenjunga), was carrying 117 passengers and crew including Homi J Bhabha, the nuclear physicist and father of India's nuclear programme.
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Homi J Bhabha was killed in the crash.
The reasons why the flight – which was headed from Bombay to London via Delhi, Beirut and Geneva – went down remain unclear to this day.
The death of Bhabha in the crash have resulted in a number of conspiracy theories springing up around the incident.
Switzerland crash in 1950
The 1950 crash also occurred in the Mont Blanc region on the French-Italian border.
The plane, Air India Express 245, was nicknamed 'Malabar Princess'.
The Lockheed four-motor propeller plane slammed into Rocher de la Tournette, a rocky point at a height of around 4,677 metres on Mont Blanc.
The Mumbai-London flight, with intermediate stops, had departed from Cairo and was to land in Geneva.
The crash left all 48 passengers on board dead.
With inputs from agencies

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