Air India Plane Crash
Air India flight Ai171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner en route from Ahmedabad to London, tragically crashed less than a minute after takeoff on June 12, 2025, at around 1:38 PM IST.
At least 270 people, 241 of whom were passengers on the flight, were killed, making it the deadliest plane crash in the world since 1996. 36 people were killed in the path of the plane as it skidded along the ground and another five students were killed when the plane crashed into the B.J. Medical College dining hall. Minakshi Parikh, the dean of the school, said there were 60 to 80 students trapped inside the hall when the plane crashed. “Most of the students escaped, but 10 or 12 were trapped in the fire,” she said.
India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is leading the investigation into the source of the crash at Ahmedabad, alongside teams from the U.S. and the UK. On Sunday, officials from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) surveyed the area of the crash.
“The AAIB has launched a detailed investigation, and the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting a parallel probe under international protocols, since the aircraft is American-made,” a statement released on Sunday said.
The intensity of the flames from the crash made identifying the passengers a challenge. As of Monday, only 99 passengers have been identified. By matching their DNA, officials from the NTSB were able to return the remains of 64 people back to their grieving families.
Dr. Rakesh Joshi, superintendent at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, where most of the bodies are being held, said, “Slowly and steadily the process is becoming faster. We’ll finish in a day or two.” Before the plane accident, there had never been any major accidents with the Dreamliner plane models except for some issues that led to 38 injured passengers.
Government officials investigating the crash said that both the flight data recorder and the cockpit data recorder survived the fire and had been located. The flame-resistant “black boxes” could hold vital information on how the plane crashed and the final communications between the pilots of the plane.
