Fatal flight
AFP | Ahmedabad
Email : editor@newsofbahrain.com
A London-bound passenger jet crashed in a residential area in the Indian city of Ahmedabad yesterday, killing at least 265 people on board and on the ground - but one passenger is believed to have survived.
Vishwashkumar Ramesh walked away from the wreckage of the Air India crash in an extraordinary tale of survival.
He was in seat 11A on the London-bound Boeing 787 flight when it crashed shortly after take off. He was near the emergency exit and managed to escape by jumping out the emergency door.
An AFP journalist saw bodies being recovered from the crash site, and the back of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner - which had 242 passengers and crew on board - hanging over the edge of a building it hit around lunchtime.
The government opened a formal investigation into the cause of the crash, and rescue teams worked into Friday morning scouring the charred wreckage with sniffer dogs.
Heartbreaking
“The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after Air India’s flight 171 crashed following takeoff. “It is heartbreaking beyond words”.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Kanan Desai told reporters said that “265 bodies have reached the hospital”.
That suggests that at least 24 people died when the jet ploughed into a medical staff hostel in a blazing fireball - and that the toll may rise further as more bodies are located.
Survivor
But while everyone aboard the flight was initially feared killed, state health official Dhananjay Dwivedi told AFP “one survivor is confirmed” and had been hospitalised.
The AFP journalist saw a building ablaze after the crash, with thick black smoke billowing into the air, and a section of the plane on the ground.
“One half of the plane crashed into the residential building where doctors lived with their families,” said Krishna, a doctor who did not give his full name. “The nose and front wheel landed on the canteen building where students were having lunch,” he said.
Burnt bodies
Krishna said he saw “about 15 to 20 burnt bodies”, while he and his colleagues rescued around 15 students.
India’s civil aviation authority said two pilots and 10 cabin crew were among the 242 people on board.
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