Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 carrying 242 people on board, crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad, India on June 12, 2025.
The Tragic Flight of AI171On June 12, 2025, at around 1:38 p.m. local time, Air India Flight 171 lifted off from Ahmedabad Airport in western India. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was bound for London Gatwick Airport. It carried 242 passengers and crew, including 10 cabin crew, two pilots, 169 Indian nationals, 53 British citizens, seven Portuguese citizens, and one Canadian.Just minutes after takeoff, the aircraft lost altitude rapidly after issuing a mayday call. The plane clipped a residential and medical college area in Ahmedabad, slamming into a building used as a medical students' hostel.
The impact resulted in a massive explosion and fireball, leaving the tail section of the aircraft wedged near the top of the structure.Miraculous Survival and TollOut of the 242 people on board and the individuals on the ground, 241 people on the plane tragically lost their lives alongside several medical students at the hostel.Amidst the devastation, a single passenger named Vishwash Kumar Ramesh survived. He reported that shortly after the aircraft lifted off, it began to descend and abruptly split in two, throwing him out into the open air just before the catastrophic explosion occurred. First responders rushed to the scene to douse the flames and recover victims in one of the worst aviation disasters in recent memory.
