Latest news with #flightAI171
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
What caused the Air India fireball: From the Indian government's 'cover-up' to questions over pilots and the sole survivor's story, the questions that hold key to the truth
It was meant to be a routine flight from India to the UK - but just 30 seconds after take-off, flight AI171 was reduced to a blazing inferno. It's been six days since the Air India plane bound for Gatwick Airport shattered into pieces after smashing into a medical staff hostel close to Ahmedabad airport, killing 242 passengers and crew - everyone except one miraculous survivor, Londoner Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, sitting in seat 11A.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
CCTV footage shows moment Air India plane crashes in Ahmedabad
CTV footage of the runway at the international airport in Ahmedabad, India shows the moment an Air India flight AI171 crashed shortly after takeoff on Thursday (June 12), killing more than 290 people. The Boeing 787 bound for London with 242 people on board crashed moments after taking off from the airport in the Indian western city, authorities said, in the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade.
The Sun
6 days ago
- General
- The Sun
Doomed Air India flight passenger's heartbreaking final words to her husband just minutes before take-off revealed
A WIFE on the doomed Air India flight excitedly called her husband just minutes before take-off to say she would be home soon. Nurat Jahar, 29, and care worker hubby Sohail Iproyaliya had gone to Gujarat to visit family at the start of May. 4 4 4 He had to return home to Leicester a fortnight later, and Nurat was heading back on Thursday on tragic flight AI 171. She could not wait to see her husband of five years and called him one last time on her mobile as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was taxiing on the runway ready to take off. But around an hour later, stunned Sohail was told she was dead. Heartbroken family friend Mohammed Ghanchi, 28, said: 'Sohail had to come home after two weeks because of work commitments but she stayed to look after her father while her brother went to Mecca.' Another friend Shahrukh Mg, 33, added: 'They were very happy. We are all shocked at the loss. 'She was a very kind character, extremely friendly. Sohail is so upset. He flew to India yesterday.' The couple lived just a few hundred yards from the Leicester home of miracle survivor Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40. The death toll rose to 279 with 38 people killed on the ground making the tragedy the worst aviation disaster this century after 9/11, and India's worst-ever single air tragedy. A total of 241 passengers and crew were killed when the 787 began to lose height 17 seconds after take-off when it had reached 625ft. It hit the hostel of a medical college 16 seconds later, erupting into a huge fireball. 'I opened my eyes & slipped out'…Brit sole survivor of Air India crash details escape Rescuers yesterday made a grim discovery of another body in the jet's tail section. Doctors are relying on DNA and dental records to identify the badly burnt remains. King Charles led a minute's silence during yesterday's Trooping the Colour. He requested the tribute himself and he and other senior royals in the parade wore black armbands. The King expressed his 'deepest possible sympathy'. Meanwhile, Indian politician Sanjay Raut speculated that the plane was downed by a 'cyber-attack'. 4 The black box containing flight data has been recovered — but the second box, which records the pilots speaking, is still missing. The plane can fly with one engine, leading to theories that it may have had a rare double engine failure. British and American investigators have now joined the investigation. The plane had recently completed the Paris-Delhi-Ahmedabad route without incident. The pilot of the IndiGo budget airline flight immediately behind AI 171 on the runway aborted his own take-off when he realised something was wrong — and moments later watched as the plane crashed. Air India is to retire flight number AI 171. The Gatwick route will now be AI 159. Family at survivor's bedside By JULIA ATHERLEY MORE than 20 family members of the sole survivor of the Air India crash flew out to be at his bedside yesterday. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, from Leicester, lost his brother Ajay on the doomed 787 flight. The siblings were sitting on different sides of the same row, with Vishwash located near the emergency exit. His cousin Hiren Kantilal, 19, said: 'He can't believe he has lost his brother. We are all heartbroken that we lost him.' From his hospital bed, Vishwash detailed his miracle escape. He said: 'I managed to unbuckle myself, used my leg to push through that opening, and crawled out. 'Everyone around me was either dead or dying. 'I still don't understand how I escaped.' Ketan Shah, from Bournemouth, was named as one of the victims. He was returning to Britain after visiting his sick father. The 43-year-old, who lived in Bournemouth with wife Megha and their teenage son and daughter, had run a village store in Shipton Bellinger, Hants, for 15 years. Fellow passenger Ash Harrington, 27, from Suffolk, was heading back to the UK on the flight with his father Suresh Patel and grandmother Radhabi Patel. His mother Andrea Bonner posted on social media: 'I will never heal this pain. RIP my son.' Orphan fund £400k A FUNDRAISER has been set up for two young sisters who were orphaned when their father was killed in the crash while returning from scattering his wife's ashes. Arjun Patoliya, 37, from Harrow, North West London, had flown to Gujarat to honour his wife Bharatiben, 42, who died of cancer in May. Last night the total donations stood at £400,000. All cash raised will go to a legal trust or appointed guardians for Jiya, eight, and four-year-old Roya. The GoFundMe page, set up by a family friend, said the money would provide 'security, stability and love in the years ahead'.
BBC News
13-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Air India: Black box found at Ahmedabad crash site as families wait for answers
A black box has been found at the site of the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, India's civil aviation minister said on Friday. The flight data recorder was recovered within 28 hours by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu confirmed. All but one of the 242 people on the London-bound flight died when it crashed into a residential area less than 60 seconds after take-off on Thursday. An official told the BBC that at least eight people on the ground were also killed."The [recovery of the black box] marks an important step forward in the investigation" and will "significantly aid the inquiry" into the disaster, Mr Kinjarapu said. Live updates as investigators search plane's wreckageBBC Verify on what could have caused the crashEverything we know so far about flight AI171Watch: How the day unfoldedAs details continue to emerge, who are the victims?Analysis: What does this mean for Boeing? Planes usually carry two black boxes - small but tough electronic data recorders. One records flight data, such as altitude and speed. The other records sound from the cockpit, so investigators can hear what the pilots are saying and listen for any unusual is leading the inquiry into the cause of the crash, helped by teams from the US and UK. Boeing's chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, said the company was supporting the investigation. Air India said there were 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft when it crashed moments after taking off from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 13:39 local time (08:09 GMT). It was scheduled to land at London's Gatwick airport at 18:25 Friday, the wreckage was still scattered across the crash site, including the blackened wing of the plane, with large pieces of the aircraft stuck in arrived at the scene and crowds were moved further away from the wreckage. A doctor told the BBC that they are relying on DNA from relatives to identify the victims. A police official at the post-mortem room told the BBC that the remains of six people had been released to families so far, as their relatives were able to identify them based on facial sole survivor of the crash, British national Vishwashkumar Ramesh, who was in seat 11A on the flight, is still recovering in hospital. "I still cannot believe how I made it out alive," he told India's state broadcaster DD News on Thursday."At first, I thought I was going to die. I managed to open my eyes, unfastened my seat belt and tried to exit the plane."Mr Ramesh, 40, who sustained burn injuries on his left hand, said he saw the aircraft crew and its passengers die in front of his desperate families are still waiting for news of their relatives. Imtiaz Ali, whose brother Javed and his family were on the flight, said that until he sees his brother's body, he will not believe he has died."If I get sad and start crying, then I'll be uncontrollable," he told the BBC. "No-one will be able to stop me... my heart might burst." The plane crashed in a residential area called Meghani Nagar and, even though it had just taken off, the impact was severe. Wreckage spread over 200m (656ft), according to responders. It is still unclear exactly how many were killed on the ground, but the BBC has been told that at least eight people, who were not on the aircraft, have died. Dr Minakshi Parikh, the dean of the BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital, said four of their students died as the plane crashed into buildings on the campus."There were also four relatives of our doctors who were on the campus when the aircraft crashed - they too were killed," Dr Parikh said."We are relying only on DNA matching to identify them and it is something where we simply cannot rush or afford mistakes. "We are working with sincerity. We want relatives to understand, and be a bit patient. We want to hand over [the bodies] as soon as possible." On Friday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent around 20 minutes at the site of the plane crash. He did not speak to reporters afterwards but a video posted on his YouTube channel showed him walking around the site and inspecting the also visited the location of a now-viral image that shows the tail of the crashed plane lodged in a building. Earlier on Friday, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson also went to the crash site, later describing the visit as "deeply moving".According to data by tracking website, Flightradar24, the Boeing Dreamliner 787-8 had completed more than 700 flights in the year leading up to the Thursday's disaster. The Air India plane was 11 years old and its most common routes included flights between Mumbai and Dubai, as well as the capital New Delhi and European destinations such as Milan, Paris and plane had operated 25 flights from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick in the past two years.
The Guardian
13-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
From bird strike to sabotage, experts offer range of theories for India air crash
A full investigation into Air India flight AI171 will be necessary to determine what caused it to crash shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad but aviation experts say a range of potential factors could have been at play. Air India 171 – a Boeing 787-8, also known as a Dreamliner – issued a mayday call to air traffic control moments after takeoff. According to the Flightradar24 website, its tracking signal was lost when the plane had reached 625ft (190 metres). Footage has emerged appearing to show the plane take off, rise slowly with its nose up, then begin to descend seconds later, gliding downwards before crashing into a building and exploding into a ball of fire. The sole survivor out of the 242 people onboard, 40-year-old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, has said he has 'no idea' how he lived to walk out of the wreckage. Aviation experts cautioned against jumping to conclusions less than 24 hours after the crash, insisting only a thorough investigation including examination of the black box and flight data recorder would give a definitive picture. However, aviation analysts have put forward a range of theories as to what led to the tragedy, in what is the first such fatal incident involving the Dreamliner. Dr Sonya Brown, a senior lecturer in aerospace design at the University of New South Wales, said the footage suggested the plane had stalled. 'It does look to me like a significant loss of thrust. Thrust effectively makes you go faster, and aircraft lift is proportional to speed, so if you don't have thrust and you lose speed – and radar data suggests after the initial short climb it was losing speed – you can stall,' Brown said. What caused the lack of thrust remained unclear, Brown said. Some interpreted video footage as showing the wing flaps were not extended during takeoff, with suggestions this could have been a pilot error and factor in the crash. These panels on the wings of a plane can be extended to help generate lift and are key during takeoff and landing. Brown said she was unsure of the flap status after watching the footage, and that even if reviewing the black box and flight data recorders showed flaps were not deployed, a stall could still be avoided with increased thrust. Brown said incorrect thrust settings due to human error could be one cause. She also noted that while the plane was modern, it was 11 years old, so the potential for inadequate maintenance could be investigated. Neil Hansford, a former pilot and chair of the Strategic Aviation Solutions consultancy, said that while pilot error could have been a factor, the crew and airline were respected. 'The captain and first officer were very experienced. This is a superior plane, we're not talking about a cowboy airline here,' Hansford said. Bird strikes, a common occurrence in aviation where wildlife interferes with a plane's engine, is one early theory, with engine failure plausibly leading the plane to stall. The Boeing 787 is a two-engine plane but is able to fly on one engine, one of many layers of redundancy baked into modern aviation that has made it one of the statistically safest forms of transport. While it is rare for a bird strike to take out two engines simultaneously, it can happen. Bird strikes took out both engines of US Airways flight 1549 in 2009, forcing the captain, Sully Sullenberger, into a landing on New York's Hudson river. Hansford noted a history of hundreds of bird strikes at Ahmedabad airport, and that there were warm temperatures on Thursday morning – conditions that make bird strikes more likely. Ramesh, the sole survivor, told the Hindustan Times that '30 seconds after takeoff there was a loud noise'. Hansford said a loud bang could occur when birds entered an engine and caused it to fail, but he believed if both engines failed, there would have been two loud bangs. Brown, as well as Dr Jason Knight, a senior lecturer in fluid mechanics at the University of Portsmouth, also said bird strikes could be responsible. Knight said: 'The most likely cause of the crash is a double engine failure. Because the altitude was so low, the pilot would have had very little time to do an emergency landing. The most likely cause of a double engine failure is a bird strike, which would take out the engine.' While extremely rare, when plane crashes did happen, takeoff and landing were when it was most likely something could go wrong, said Hansford. Prof John McDermid, the Lloyd's Register chair of safety at University of York, said: 'Pilots can abort takeoff until quite late in the takeoff roll, so it seems like the problem occurred very suddenly in the final part of the takeoff roll, or shortly after takeoff, and was sufficiently serious to be unmanageable.' The many layers of redundancy, such as backup power sources and computer monitoring systems such as autopilot, and, when all else fails, the ability for a plane to glide – which was seen briefly on Thursday before impact – may have been less helpful in helping the pilots to avoid crashing due to the lack of altitude. Brown said: 'All of these things are more effective if you have time, but this happened so soon after takeoff. If you had the same issue at 40,000ft, it's very different to 400ft. There's just not many layers of redundancy at that altitude.' Hansford believed other theories the investigators should examine were potential sabotage, noting political tensions in Gujarat state, of which Ahmedabad is the capital. Contaminated fuel was another possibility, he said. The plane's fuel tank was reportedly near-full, but Hansford said contaminants could lead to clogging. 'Blocking fuel could cause an engine problem,' he said.
