
This Morning's Cat Deeley pauses show to announce tragic India plane crash news
This Morning was abruptly interrupted with "terrible" breaking news of a plane crash in India on Thursday (June 12).
During today's edition of the hit ITV programme, hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard announced a devastating update after a London-bound Air India plane carrying 242 people crashed shortly after take-off in Ahmedabad, western India.
Onboard were 169 Indian citizens, alongside 53 Britons, one Canadian, and seven Portuguese, as confirmed by Air India.
The aircraft, identified as a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, issued a mayday call post-takeoff but then gave no response.
Flight Radar data revealed that the signal vanished moments after the plane ascended to 625 feet. The jet then tragically plummeted into a residential zone close to the airport, reports Wales Online.
Cat solemnly informed viewers at the beginning of This Morning's View segment: "We're starting with some terrible breaking news."
"An Air India plane bound for London Gatwick has crashed shortly after take off in India. And it really hadn't got very far at all," she added, before passing the baton to Nick Ferrari for further updates.
"This is flight A171 from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, due to get London Gatwick at 6:25pm. 232 passengers, 12 crew on board. The plane was only up for seconds, it reached a height of about 620 feet or 180 metres," Nick detailed.
"It is believed, and I repeat, it is believed there 52 Britons on board. I stress it just believed at that moment," he continued, before Ben confirmed that there had been 53 British citizens on board.
Nick went on to say: "Air India have confirmed the flight crashed and is now awaiting full investigation. Let's not speculate."
Footage from the crash site showing plumes of dark smoke was then broadcast, underscoring the severity of the incident.
Nick concluded: "Our thoughts are with everyone involved. We'll be talking about what's on your front pages in a moment, that will be on your front pages tomorrow and I'm sure there will be more on ITV as we go along."
Ben added: "Yes, exactly. Stay tuned to the ITV News channels and we'll keep you updated as we hear more."
Following the tragic news, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer expressed in a statement: "The scenes emerging of a London-bound plane carrying many British nationals crashing in the Indian city of Ahmedabad are devastating.
"I am being kept updated as the situation develops, and my thoughts are with the passengers and their families at this deeply distressing time."

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Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The school where NONE of the pupils speak English as first language
On a bright, sunny afternoon parents are picking up their children from Kobi Nazrul primary school in London 's East End in familiar scenes repeated up and down the land. Yet Kobi Nazrul is unique. It's thought to be the only school in the country with no pupils who speak English as a first language. Despite the language barrier, the 'friendly and welcoming' school received a glowing report from Ofsted in its most recent inspection. Leaders have 'high aspirations for pupils' who 'very much' enjoyed their learning environment and gave the school a 'good' rating, the second highest. Parents seem equally as enthusiastic. Picking up her six-year-old son, Bina Begum, 36, told MailOnline: 'The school is amazing, they're so supportive and very welcoming. 'I think the staff are doing a wonderful job.' The inner city school sits in a quiet side street off the busy Commercial Road in Whitechapel - a district once synonymous with Jack the Ripper and the Kray twins and home to the nation's true Cockneys. So how is it that pupils at the school - that stands in the shadow of towering skyscrapers which represent the immense wealth of the City - start their academic life speaking very little, or no, English at all? Latest UK government data shows that of the 243 pupils aged three to 11 on the primary school's register, 100 per cent of them do not have English as their first language compared with 22.8 per cent across England as a whole. Department of Education statistics, obtained by MailOnline under a Freedom of Information request, show 92.5 per cent of boys and girls at the school speak Bengali as their first language. The overwhelming majority of children at the school come from the local Bangladeshi community. Yet there are also a number of youngsters from Indian and Pakistani backgrounds who speak Hindi and Urdu and a small but growing number who speak Albanian. There are also pupils who are fluent in Italian and German who were born in Italy and Austria to Bangladeshi families who later moved to London. At the end of the street, just yards away, is the East London Mosque, one of the largest in Europe which accommodates up to 7,000 worshippers for prayers. Mrs Begum said: 'The majority of children are from a Bengali background but the school embraces all cultures and everyone is made to feel at home. 'My niece was the first in the family to go there and she's now 27-years-old. Her siblings followed and now my son is in Year One and my daughter is due to start later this year.' Speaking at the school gates as he waited for his son and daughter with other fathers, Md Al Mamun, 40, said: 'I like that the teachers and those who run the school try and keep things interesting for the children. 'They had a trip recently to the seaside and the children loved that. There's also a lot of extracurricular activities organised by the school. 'The classes aren't huge. 'My children speak English fluently but also speak Bengali, most of their school friends do. 'But it's not just children from a Bengali background. There's children from Indian, Pakistani and Middle Eastern backgrounds and a few children from Albanian backgrounds.' According to the 2021 Census, more than half of Whitechapel's residents - 51.3 per cent to be exact - come from an Asian background. The area has a long history of welcoming immigrants. From the late 19th century until the late 20th century, Whitechapel had a very high Jewish population but since the 1960s it has been home to London's Bangladeshi community. Gone are the traditional East End pubs and pie and mash shops and in their place are Islamic cafes and shops selling Muslim robes and sarees. Palestinian flags flutter from windows or are painted onto the grills of shopfronts and street signs warning of 'No ball games' are written in Bengali as well as English. The local authority is headed by controversial Bangladeshi-born mayor Lutfur Rahman who was re-elected three years ago. Rahman had been removed as mayor in 2015 and banned from standing again for five years after being found guilty of electoral fraud. Mohiul Islam, 56, has worked for a money transfer business based opposite the school, for the last 40-years. He said that when the business was set up in the mid-1980s there were still 'a few' East End-born and bred Cockney families living in the area. Mr Islam, who is originally from Bangladesh, said: 'They are all long gone. I don't know of any now because they've either passed away or moved out of Whitechapel. 'This area has always been popular with Bangladeshis, it's our heartland in London. 'Before Brexit there were Bengali families who had been living in Europe, in countries like Italy, Germany and Austria who came to Whitechapel. Some have stayed others have gone back. 'There is also a growing number of East Africans, particularly Somalis, moving to the area but I think it will always be dominated by the Bangladeshi community.' Not all the changes in recent times have been good, according to Mr Islam. He said: 'I think the biggest change is the sheer number of people who live here now. It's become very overcrowded and as a result there's a lot more litter around the streets. 'The young people are also not as considerate today as people were a while ago. They appear much more arrogant and entitled. 'There are still drug dealers operating around here and some of the youngsters walk around smoking cannabis, you can smell it. 'But I would say there are fewer robberies than before and there has been a reduction in instances of domestic violence which used to be a big problem locally. There's more education and awareness around the issues now.' Shahin Ahmed, 55, runs a corner shop close to the school. He said: 'Most of my customers are from a Bangladeshi background but there are increasing numbers of shoppers from Europe and Brazil. 'A lot of the children come in here after school and all of them speak in English to me even though they are fluent in Bengali. 'There is a good sense of community spirit around here. There is very little in the way of tension. 'The police and council have put up more CCTV cameras which has helped push the drug dealers out. 'Whitechapel is a busy and crowded area and it's noisy but the streets around the school are relatively quiet and calm.' Mohammed Saaddudin, who runs a nearby Halal butchers, explained that the majority of Bangladeshi's in Whitechapel come from one region in the north east of the country. Mr Saaddudin, 71, said: 'I would say if you stopped 100 people in the street outside, at least 90 of them would be from Sylhet. 'When Bangladeshis first started coming over to England, that's where they came from. 'Over the last 15-20 years Bangladeshis have been coming over from other parts of the country but most of us will be from Sylhet. It's a home from home in Whitechapel.' Iqbal Hossan, 50, is one of many Bangladeshis to come to London from Italy. He had been working in Venice and Milan before travelling to Whitechapel eight years ago and now runs Caffe Italia just off Commercial Road. Despite the name, most of the customers are Bangladeshi and speak Bengali. Mr Hossan said: 'The UK has a much bigger Bangladeshi population than Italy and Whitechapel is the centre of London's Bangladeshi community which is why so many of us have travelled over. 'The coffee and the food is Italian but it has a Bangladeshi flavour.' The terraced streets around Kobi Nazrul primary are filled mainly with late Victorian three-storey villas. The average price for a detached house is more than £1million and more than £600,000 for a two-bed leasehold flat - out of the price range of the families of most pupils at the school. According to an Ofsted report in 2016, a 'much higher than average' number of students - almost half those on the school roll - were eligible for 'pupil premium funding' - grants aimed at improving the outcomes for disadvantaged children. Through the scheme primary schools receive £1,480 per child with funds allocated to schools based on how many children are receiving free school meals. The school also had a higher than average proportion of pupils who had special educational needs or disability with most cases relating to 'speech, language and communication needs or moderate learning difficulties'. Despite this the school, which was named after a Bengali poet and activist, is thriving. According to the latest published performance data, 76 per cent of pupils at Kobi Nazrul are meeting 'expected standards' in reading, writing and maths even though all 29 children in the final year of primary school did not have English as their first language. That compares with a local average of 71 per cent and an average of 61 per cent in England. But it was not always this way and the school has had something of a chequered past. In 2006, future Prime Minister David Cameron visited Kobi Nazrul to unveil his 'vision' to transform education. Cameron, who had recently been made Conservative leader, outlined his party's plans to turn around the fortunes of schools in inner-city areas which he said had been failing for too long. The school was chosen for the launch as it was achieving good results despite its location in one of Europe's poorest districts. Another high profile visitor was Judy Murray who went there to share tennis tips and teach the kids ball games - just days after her son Andy beat Novak Djokovic in straight sets to win his first Wimbledon title in 2013. But there were troubles on the way for the school which just months later was plunged into crisis amid allegations its leadership had been infiltrated by Islamic extremists. Troubles began after a dramatic drop in standards led to Kobi Nazrul recording the worst ever SATs results in the borough. Just 40 per cent of children at the school achieved the required results in Maths and English compared with 82 per cent in 2012. It led to an emergency Ofsted inspection carried out with no notice at the request of the then education secretary. It then emerged Tower Hamlets Council held information relating to concerns over attempts by Islamic extremists to infiltrate local schools and subvert teachings. It also emerged that one of the school governors was a senior member of Hizb ut-Tahrir - a radical global group with a 'long-term goal of establishing a caliphate ruled under Islamic law' which has since been outlawed in the UK. The school was placed in special measures after it was found to be 'inadequate' in all areas. Its then headteacher denied there had been attempts at radicalisation but amid the failings, the head was replaced along with the school's entire board of governors. Australian-born Belinda King was appointed interim head before the position was made permanent and she remains at the school today. She set off on a mission to turn around the failing school and quickly produced results. In February 2016 the school was given its 'good' Ofsted rating after an inspection found the 'highly effective senior leadership team' has secured 'significant improvements'. Ms King told MailOnline: 'The community here is wonderful. We are a very diverse school and I'm fiercely protective of all my children and their parents.'


Daily Mirror
5 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
'Swooping seagulls who steal your food need pity not hate'
Birding expert Stuart Winter reveals the sad reason that seagulls have become such seaside pests, brazenly stealing food from out of people's mouths A family beach picnic serenaded by lapping waves and lilting gull cries was hardly the time or place for a half-term lesson on seabird ecology. My three grandchildren's eyes began glazing over the moment I started lecturing them on why our most maligned birds should be loved not loathed. Mention of the dreaded S-word had put me in a flap after the trio witnessed a holidaymaker being relieved of a doughnut by a demonic creature with evil eyes and razor-sharp beak – a seagull! 'Gull, we call them gulls! Never, never seagulls!' I pontificated with the same zeal I had once reprimanded an American for having the temerity to say soccer rather than football. Standing all schoolmasterly atop a rocky Norfolk breakwater, I explained how herring gulls with their silvery, ink-tipped wings were things of beauty but, sadly, now a Red List Species of Conservation Concern after a 70% UK population crash since the 1970s. Diminishing food resources because of landfill site closures and reductions in fish discards along with the scourge of bird flu is making survival tough for a creature that has become a pariah for its liking of fast-food scraps. As my afternoon sermon came to an end, all eyes turned to a smoky grey shape gliding elegantly above our heads. 'Gull!' The grandkids declared in unison, each waiting for approval at their correct bird identification. Time for another lecture. Pointing out the stiff wings and rotund body shape of the bird coasting leisurely over the shallows, I declared that rather than a gull we were watching a fulmar – the closest thing to an albatross patrolling British waters. Mere mention of an albatross, the mighty wanderer of storm-lashed southern oceans and ancient rhymes, had them captivated. So close was the fulmar I could point out features shared with its legendary relation: tube-shaped nostrils to distil sea-water and the ability to projectile vomit foul-smelling stomach contents to deter predators. After all the sermonising, I didn't have the temerity to admit that fulmar derives from 'foul seagull' in Old Norse! Can you recognise the wren's song The rock concert season is upon us but the sound of silence has descended on a countryside slouched in summer stillness. Warblers are no longer warbling and cuckoos have called their last. Nightingales have been put on mute. Exhausted robins are resting voices while replenishing feathers worn ragged by the labours of parenthood. Although spring's dawn chorus is a fading earworm, one headbanger still blaring out dawn to dusk is arguably nature's most powerful vocalist by weight to sound. The Eurasian wren, a chocolate-coated, ping pong ball of a bird with a sticky up tail and barrow boy's gape, has a voice that defies its diminutive proportions. Weighing a mere nine grams, the male marks his territory with a 90 decibel song as loud and powerful as a rock drum solo that's audible from a kilometre. Yet there is more to the wren's rat-a-tat song than the five-second paradiddles belted out without respite. Each of its verses contain more than 100 individual beats, many in the high frequency 7-8 kHz range, and repeated incessantly every month of the year. Rudely woken by the proclamations of a particularly raucous wren outside the bedroom window at 4am last week, I was reminded of the first lines of Walter de la Mare's beautiful poem, Jenny Wren: Of all the birds that rove and sing, Near dwellings made for men, None is so nimble, feat, and trim, As Jenny Wren. Wrens have gender identification issues across different cultures. In Germany, they take on a masculine persona and are called Zaunkonig, or Hedge King. Here in Britain, the bird was given the affectionate moniker of the Jenny Wren in the 1640s, largely because of a long-held belief the species was the female partner of the robin. While ear-splitting males are the headline act, one wren vocalisation noted in literature that I would love to hear is the lullaby whispered by mother wrens when incubating eggs or tending fledglings. The gentle sounds are said to be reminiscent of distant twittering swallow song.


BBC News
6 hours ago
- BBC News
London Councils praised for work in tackling climate change
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