While we’re often told that flying in a plane is one of the safest modes of transportation, pilots and aviation experts say takeoff and landing are the riskiest parts of a flight.
An Air India flight en route to London carrying over 242 passengers and crew crashed shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad international airport today. Video shows the plane struggling to lift up before crashing into a residential area minutes later.
CNN reports that the Boeing’s president and CEO Kelly Ortberg who spoke to Air India Chair N. Chandrasekaran after a deadly crash offered the chair “our full support” and told him “a Boeing team stands ready to support the investigation led by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau,” according to a statement.
The blue skies above western India, flight AI171 in several amateur videos taken by passengers on board another plane was struggling to gain altitude.
The London-bound plane had barely left the runway at Ahmedabad airport before it was careening back to earth.
Only one of the 242 people on board the Air India flight survived, according to the airline. In addition to those on board, people on the ground were killed when the plane crashed into the BJ Medical College and Hospital hostel. In total, at least 290 people are dead. This is so sad . Investigation is ongoing as to the cause of the plane crash.
The survivor, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British national of Indian origin, is “doing well” but “psychologically disturbed” by the event, according to the medical director of the Civil Hospital, where he is being treated. He says “how I’m I alive?”, “how did I get out of the plane”