On Friday, investigators retrieved the black box recorder from the crash site of a London-bound passenger plane that crashed into a residential area in Ahmedabad, India.
Gatekeepers News reports that the tragic incident resulted in the deaths of at least 265 individuals, including those on board and in the vicinity of the crash.
The aircraft, an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, had issued a mayday call shortly before its descent, which occurred just after taking off and reaching an altitude of about 100 meters (approximately 330 feet) around lunchtime on Thursday.
One passenger on the flight, which carried 242 people including crew members, survived the devastating crash. The aftermath left the tail section of the airplane protruding from the second floor of a hostel intended for medical staff at a nearby hospital.
“Initially, I too thought that I was about to die, but then I opened my eyes and realised that I was still alive,” survivor Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British citizen, told national broadcaster DD News from his hospital bed.
The nose and front wheel of Air India flight 171 landed on a canteen building where students were having lunch, witnesses said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Kanan Desai, said that 265 bodies had been counted so far, which suggested that at least 24 people were killed on the ground. The toll could rise further as more body parts are recovered.
“The official number of deceased will be declared only after DNA testing is completed,” Home Minister, Amit Shah, said in a statement late on Thursday.
DNA samples will be taken from family members of the dead who live abroad, he said.
Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and a Canadian on board the flight bound for London’s Gatwick airport, as well as 12 crew members.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the devastated neighbourhood on Friday and was also pictured by survivor Ramesh’s bedside.
Ramesh, who suffered burns and other injuries, said: “Everything happened in front of me, and even I couldn’t believe how I managed to come out alive from that.”
“Within a minute after takeoff, suddenly… it felt like something got stuck… I realised something had happened, and then suddenly the plane’s green and white lights turned on.”
In Ahmedabad, disconsolate relatives of passengers gathered at an emergency centre on Friday to give DNA samples so their loved ones could be identified.
