Plane crashed onto medical college hostel outside airport; police say 204 bodies recovered from crash site
\n AHMEDABAD
\nMore than 290 people were killed when an Air India plane bound for London with 242 people on board crashed minutes after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, authorities said, in the world\u2019s worst aviation disaster in a decade.
\nThe dead included people on the ground as the aircraft\u2013headed for Gatwick Airport, south of the British capital\u2013crashed on to a medical college hostel during lunch hour.
\nAt least one passenger is known to have survived, police said, and the man told Indian media how he had heard a loud noise shortly after take-off.
\n\u201cApproximately 294 have died. This includes some students as the plane crashed on the building where they were staying,\u201d Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer, told Reuters.
\nThe plane came down in a residential area, crashing onto a medical college hostel outside the airport during lunch hour. It was headed for Gatwick Airport, south of the British capital.
\nCity police chief G.S. Malik told Reuters that 204 bodies had been recovered from the crash site. Vidhi Chaudhary, another senior police officer, said police found one survivor who was in seat 11A, adding that there could be more survivors in hospital.
\n\u201cThirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed,\u201d 40-year-old Ramesh Viswashkumar told the Hindustan Times, which showed a boarding pass for seat 11A in that name online.
\n\u201cIt all happened so quickly,\u201d he told the paper from his hospital bed.
\n\u201cWhen I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me,\u201d he said. \u201cSomeone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital.\u201d
\nHe said that his brother Ajay was seated in a different row on the plane. \u201cHe was travelling with me and I can\u2019t find him anymore. Please help me find him,\u201d he said.
\nPolice chief Malik said the bodies recovered could include both passengers and people killed on the ground. Federal minister C.R. Patil said the dead included Vijay Rupani, the former chief minister of Gujarat state, of which Ahmedabad is the main city.
\n\u201cChances are there could be some more survivors among those who are in hospital,\u201d police officer Chaudhary told Reuters. \u201cThere are also chances that the death toll will go up. More than 50 injured are in hospitals at present.\u201d
\nRelatives had been asked to give DNA samples to identify the dead, state health secretary Dhananjay Dwivedi told reporters.
\n\u201cAhmedabad Civil Hospital students\u2019 hostel, staff quarters and other residential areas are located in the area where the plane crashed,\u201d Dwivedi said. \u201cThe residents of that area were also injured.\u201d
\nParts of the plane\u2019s body were scattered around the building into which it crashed. The tail of the plane was stuck on top of the building.
\nIndia\u2019s CNN News-18 TV channels said the plane crashed on top of the dining area of state-run B.J. Medical College hostel, killing many medical students as well.
\nThe passengers included 217 adults, 11 children and two infants, a source told Reuters. Of them, 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian, Air India said.
\nAviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service.
\nIt was the first crash for the Dreamliner, which began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Plane crashed onto medical college hostel outside airport; police say 204 bodies recovered from crash site AHMEDABAD More than 290 people were killed when an Air India plane bound for London with 242 people on board crashed minutes after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, authorities said, in the world\u2019s worst […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483825,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-483818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n