What has happened?
An Air India passenger plane bound for Gatwick airport with more than 240 people on board has crashed shortly after takeoff from the north-western Indian city of Ahmedabad.
Air India flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 (also known as a Dreamliner), came down in the residential area of Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off at 1.38pm local time, Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, the director general of the directorate of civil aviation, told the Associated Press.
Footage from the near the scene showed smoke billowing from the crash site:
According to reports in the Indian media the plane crashed into a building comprising accommodation for doctors working in local hospitals.
The plane issued a mayday call to air traffic control after takeoff. According to the Flightradar24 website, signal was lost seconds after takeoff when the plane had reached a height of 625ft.
Who was onboard?
Air India said 242 people were on board, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew. Among those were 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese people and one Canadian, according to the airline.
Kidwai said 244 people were onboard – it has not been possible to reconcile the discrepancy.
What do we know about casualties?
The Ahmedabad police commissioner said that there appeared to be no survivors from the plane and that there were also casualties on the ground. Rescue personnel at the site told Reuters at least 30 bodies had been recovered from a building where the plane came down.
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What type of plane was involved?
The 787 Dreamliner is a wide-body, twin-engine plane that was introduced in 2011. More than 1,000 have been delivered to dozens of airlines, according to Flightradar24. The model has been prized for its far better fuel efficiency and lower noise than the types it replaced. Tuesday’s crash is the first involving a Boeing 787, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.
Boeing has been in recovery mode for more than six years after Lion Air flight 610, a Boeing 737 Max 8, fell into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people onboard. Five months later, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, a Boeing 737 Max 8, crashed after takeoff from Addis Ababa, killing 157 passengers and crew members.
What do we know about the cause?
There is no information yet on possible causes, though in aviation, crashes are statistically most likely during landing or takeoff.
An aviation safety expert told the BBC that the weather had been stable and clear at the time.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
