Kalpesh Patni mourning the death of his 14-year-old brother Akash Patni, who was sleeping on the ground when Air India flight 171 crashed in a residential area, at the hospital mortuary in Ahmedabad.- AFP
AHMEDABAD: Thick black plumes of acrid smoke towered high above India’s Ahmedabad airport on June 12 after a London-bound passenger jet with 242 people aboard crashed shortly after take-off.
The Air India plane came down in a residential area between a hospital and the city’s Ghoda Camp neighbourhood. It crashed into a medical college hostel during lunch hour.
Ahmedabad, the main city of India’s Gujarat state, is home to around eight million people and the busy airport is surrounded by densely packed residential areas.
An AFP journalist saw people recovering bodies and firefighters trying to douse the smouldering wreckage after the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed.
A photograph published by India’s Central Industrial Security Force, a national security agency, showed the tail of the plane jutting from a building.
The AFP journalist saw a section of the plane lying on the ground and a building ablaze, with thick black smoke billowing into the air.
“One half of the plane crashed into the residential building where doctors lived with their families,” said Dr 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.
Dr Krishna said he saw “about 15 to 20 burnt bodies”, while he and his colleagues rescued around 15 students.
“When we reached the spot, there were several bodies lying around and firefighters were dousing the flames,” resident Poonam Patni told AFP.
“Many of the bodies were burnt,” she said.
The AFP journalist saw medics using a cart to load bodies into an ambulance, while a charred metal bed frame stood surrounded by burnt wreckage.
Ramila, the mother of a student at the medical college, told news agency ANI her son had gone to the hostel for his lunch break when the plane crashed.
“My son is safe, and I have spoken to him. He jumped from the second floor, so he suffered some injuries,” she said.
Rescue teams supported by the military had found over 200 bodies so far, with at least one survivor found, according to city police commissioner G.S. Malik. - Agencies
