An Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner carrying 242 passengers and crew crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad, killing more than 200 people in what is being described as the deadliest aviation disaster in the world in the past ten years.
The London-bound flight was en route to Gatwick Airport when it went down in a residential area, crashing into a doctors’ hostel at the B.J. Medical College during lunchtime. According to police chief G.S. Malik, at least 204 bodies have been recovered from the scene. No survivors have been found so far.
Among the passengers were 169 Indians, 53 Britons, 7 Portuguese, and 1 Canadian, including 11 children and two infants. Many medical students are believed to be among the victims on the ground. Families of victims have been asked to provide DNA samples for identification.
Parts of the aircraft were scattered around the crash site, with the plane’s tail lodged atop the hostel building. The aircraft had first flown in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in 2014. This is the first-ever crash involving a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner since it entered service in 2011.