An Air India flight bound for London with 242 passengers and crew on board crashed into a residential area in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, killing 260 people. One survivor was among the passengers. "The death toll from the plane crash is 260 so far," Police Commissioner Vidya Chaudhary said Thursday evening, suggesting that 19 of them were residents of the disaster site near Ahmedabad airport. An AFP correspondent saw people recovering bodies and firefighters working among the charred wreckage of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which crashed into buildings housing doctors and their families in the afternoon. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his "shock" over the crash. “We are saddened by the tragedy… which is beyond description,” in Ahmedabad. State health official Dhananjay Dwivedi told AFP that “one person has been confirmed alive” and was being treated in hospital. An AFP correspondent saw part of the plane and a building on fire amid thick black smoke. A doctor, Krishna, said that “half of the plane crashed into the residential building where doctors and their families were staying.” He explained that “the nose of the plane and the two front wheels fell on the canteen building where students were having lunch.” Krishna saw “around 15 to 20 burnt bodies” and, with colleagues, rescued around 15 medical students. India’s Civil Aviation Authority reported that “242 people were on the plane,” including two pilots and 10 crew members. Air India said that 169 Indian passengers, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian were on the plane bound for London’s Gatwick Airport. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that “the footage received of the plane was A London-bound plane carrying many British citizens crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, devastating the city. US President Donald Trump offered aid to India following the "horrible" crash, telling reporters at the White House: "I told them we will be there immediately... to do whatever we can." The plane sent a distress call to the control tower, according to India's Civil Aviation Authority, which said it "came down immediately after takeoff" outside the airport. Ahmedabad, in Gujarat state, has a population of about eight million and its airport is surrounded by densely populated residential areas. "When we reached the site, we saw many bodies and firefighters were putting out the flames," resident Poonam Patni told AFP, adding that "many bodies were burned." An AFP reporter saw paramedics using a trolley to transfer bodies to an ambulance near the burning wreckage. The plane crashed in an area between Ahmedabad Civil Hospital and the Goda Camp neighborhood. The airport was closed, the facility's operator said, with all flights suspended. Flights will be suspended “until further notice.” Boeing confirmed that it is “in contact with Air India regarding Flight 171 and stands ready to support them.” The British and US air accident investigation agencies announced that they would send teams to support their Indian counterparts. Air India Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran announced the activation of an emergency center and the creation of a support team for families seeking information. The Tata Group, owner of Air India, offered financial assistance of 10 million rupees ($117,000) “to the families of each person who lost their life in this tragedy,” and also promised to cover the medical expenses of the injured. India has experienced a series of fatal air crashes over the years, including a disaster in 1996 when two planes collided mid-air over New Delhi, killing about 350 people. In 2010, an Air India Express plane crashed and burst into flames at Mangalore airport in southwestern India, killing 11 people. 158 passengers and crew members were killed. Experts said it was too early to speculate on the cause of the plane's crash on Thursday. "It is highly unlikely that the plane was overweight or carrying too much fuel," said Jason Knight, a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Portsmouth. "The plane is designed to be able to fly on one engine, so the most likely cause of the crash is a failure in both engines. The most likely cause of a failure in both engines is a bird strike." India's aviation sector has boomed in recent years, with IATA Director General Willie Walsh last month describing the growth as "mind-blowing." Thanks to its growing economy, India, with its 1.4 billion people, is now the world's fourth-largest aviation market, both domestically and internationally, and IATA expects it to climb to third place within a decade. Domestic passenger traffic reached a new milestone last year, exceeding 500,000 passengers in a single day, according to India's Ministry of Civil Aviation.
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