The Air India flight bound for London crashed near Ahmedabad's Meghaninagar area immediately after take-off, according to reports. Meghaninagar is located at a distance of about 15 kilometres from the airport, which indicates that the plane wasn't airborne for long before it came crashing down.
Though there isn't much information available at this point, speculations are that the plane may have hit a nearby building or even a boundary wall while taking off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad.
According to the data by Flight tracker Flightradar. the signal from the aircraft was lost at 625 feet, less than a minute after the take off. The pilot, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, is said to have said MayDay before the crash.
The DGCA statement said the aircraft departed from Ahmadabad at 13:39 IST (0809 UTC) from runway 23. "It gave a MAYDAY Call to ATC, but thereafter, no response was given by the aircraft to the calls made by ATC. Aircraft immediately after departure from Runway 23, fell on the ground outside the airport perimeter. Heavy black smoke was seen coming from the accident site," the statement added.
There were 242 passengers on board the plane that was headed to London's Gatwick airport. A post by Air India read: "At this moment, we are ascertaining the details and will share further updates," Air India said on X. The plane is said to have crashed in a civilian area near the airport.