Ahmedabad: Tragedy struck the city on a blistering Thursday afternoon when an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner slammed into the Meghani district barely minutes after departure. On June 12, 2025, the locals stared in disbelief as the craft morphed from airborne hope into a roaring fireball, killing more than 200 people on board and in the neighbourhood below.
Flight AI171 was scheduled to ferry 230 passengers and 12 crew to London’s Gatwick Airport. At 1:38 p.m., the jet lifted off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, issued a brief mayday, then dropped out of the sky over a midday lunch crowd at a medical college hostel. Flames erupted so violently that thick black smoke choked the air for miles, blotting out midday light.
Photographs from the scene hours later showed the plane’s tail crunched atop the hostel roof like a broken branch, with titanium shards peppering nearby streets. The sight looked surreal; a commercial airliner reduced to the same detritus as foil candy wrappers, yet laced with fuel-scented horror.
Emergency brigades arrived within minutes, but the Indian Army units, NDRF, CRPF, and local fire crews struggled against the heat and the overwhelming spread of the wreckage. Police Commissioner G.S. Malik later announced that 204 bodies had been recovered, a number that includes victims from the aeroplane and some residents who had no idea death was winging toward them.
One fortunate passenger, forty-year-old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh from London, was sitting in seat 11A beside the emergency door when the aircraft met the ground. Ramesh emerged with only bruises, yet he recalled the moment as concise as a punchline: loud bang, instant descent. The phrase ‘thirty seconds after take-off’ still resonates in his mind.
Former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani was travelling on the same flight; Union Minister C.R. Patil confirmed that Rupani did not survive. Flight paperwork later revealed that 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese citizens, and one Canadian shared the journey. Boeing 787 Dreamliners have logged over a decade of accident-free service, making the tragedy the platform’s grim debut in the fatality column.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the news as heartbreaking beyond words and posted his sympathy on X. Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, already on the tarmac, promised immediate medical and logistical backup. Rescue teams, floodlight cranes, and portable clinics started moving before sunset.
The Indian Medical Association-Gujarat later reported that three MBBS students staying in a nearby hostel died when concrete ceiling panels gave way. TraumaCentre staff processed ninety wounded that night and prepared DNA kits to match remains. Air India Destroyer, understanding the shock, Chartered relief flights from Delhi and Mumbai and stood up a round-the-clock hotline: 1800 5691 444.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau opened its inquiry almost immediately, sifting through cockpit voice recordings and the battered wreckage. A team from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board flew in alongside the investigators, and Boeing promised Air India it would assemble whatever technical expertise the airline required. Flightradar 24 logs reveal the jet vanished from radar at six hundred twenty-five feet while in a near-vertical plunge.
With helicopters searching the debris field and forensic teams blocking off evidence corridors, Ahmedabad is already ranking among the deadliest air crashes in India. International outrage has poured in, sparking a renewed debate over the safety protocols that govern each take-off and landing.