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An Air India flight which was en route to London Gatwick has crashed in India.

At least 242 people were on board the flight when it crashed shortly after take off in the northwestern Indian city of Ahmedabad.

More than 50 of the passengers are British nationals.

India plane crash latest: Follow live updates

Here is what we know so far.

Where did the plane crash?

Air India flight AI171 took off from Ahmedabad Airport at 1.38pm local time on Thursday.

According to flight tracking website Flightrader, the aircraft had reached a height of 625ft before crashing. Its last signal was received less than a minute after take off.

Air India pane crash map

The aircraft crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar, Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, the director general of the directorate of civil aviation, told the Associated Press.

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Huge plumes of smoke near Indian airport

More than 100 bodies have been brought to hospital in Ahmedabad, police said.

At least 30 bodies were recovered from a building at the site of the crash, Reuters reported, citing rescue workers at the site.

More people were trapped inside the building, the workers said.

Rescue team members work as smoke rises at the site where an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025. REUTERS/Amit Dave
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Pic: Reuters

People work near the site of an airplane that crashed in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, Thursday, June12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)
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Pic: AP

Images from the scene showed people being moved in stretchers and taken away in ambulances. The exact number of casualties is not known.

The tail of the plane has been pictured protruding from a building, while the wings were ripped completely from the main body of the aircraft.

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Tail of Air India plane in roof

MANDATORY credit - Xinhua/Shutterstock
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One plane wing completely detached from the body of the aircraft. Pic: Xinhua/Shutterstock


Who was on board?

Air India said of the 242 passengers and crew on the plane, 53 are British nationals, 169 are Indian nationals, seven are Portuguese and one person is Canadian.

Those that have been injured are being taken to the nearest hospitals.

Firefighters work to put out a fire at the site where an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed in Ahmedabad.
Pic: Reuters
Image:

Pic: Reuters

The airline said it has also “set up a dedicated passenger hotline number 1800 5691 444 to provide more information”.

The flight had been due to land at London Gatwick at 6.25pm local time.

A general view of part of the departure hall that is used by Air India at Gatwick Airport near London, Thursday, June 12, 2025, after an Air India jet bound for London crashed in Ahmedabad, India with more than 240 people on board. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
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The departure hall that is used by Air India at Gatwick Airport. Pic: AP

What caused the crash?

It is unknown at this stage what caused the crash.

The aircraft was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. The American aircraft manufacturer which makes the plane, said it is “aware of initial reports” and is working to gather more information.

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Moment before and after crash

Aviation expert Julian Bray told Sky News that he understands the pilot of flight AI171 managed to make a mayday call before the crash.

This would mean the crew was aware of a problem before the incident happened.

A mayday call is an internationally recognised distress signal used in radio communication. It indicates an imminent danger and the need for immediate assistance.

People gather near the wreckage where Air India crashed in Ahmedabad.
Pic: Reuters
Image:
People gather near the wreckage.
Pic: Reuters

Sky News’ science correspondent Thomas Moore said investigators will now be studying the video and the two black boxes recording cockpit conversations and technical data to try to understand why the crash occurred.

“It’s possible there was an engine failure of some kind, perhaps caused by a catastrophic mechanical fault. But the plane is designed to be able to fly with one engine, even at take-off, so something else would have to go wrong too,” he said

“Both engines could have failed if they sucked in a flock of birds as the plane took off. It’s happened in other air crashes.”

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Aviation experts on India plane crash

How has the UK responded?

Sir Keir Starmer said the scenes emerging from the site of the crash in Ahmedabad are “devastating”.

The prime minister said he is being kept updated as the situation develops. Buckingham Palace said King Charles is also being briefed on the crash.

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Rescuers rush to airport

Foreign Minister David Lammy said that he is “deeply saddened by news”.

In a statement on X, Mr Lammy wrote: “My thoughts are with all those affected. The UK is working with local authorities in India to urgently establish the facts and provide support.”

People gather near the site where an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025. REUTERS/Amit Dave
Image:
Pic: Reuters

Members of the security forces work at the site of an airplane that crashed in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, Thursday, June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)
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Pic: AP

The UK’s Foreign Office said it is currently “working with local authorities in India to urgently establish the facts and provide support to those involved”.

Britons who have concerns may call 0207 008 5000, the Foreign Office added.

Firefighters work at the site of an airplane that crashed in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, Thursday, June12, 2025
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Pic: AP

What has India said?

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the plane crash was “heartbreaking beyond words”.

“The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us,” he said.

“In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected by it.”

Firefighters work at the site of an airplane that crashed in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, Thursday, June12, 2025
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Firefighters work at the site of the crash. Pic: AP

The country’s civil aviation minister said he is “shocked and devastated”.

“I am personally monitoring the situation and have directed all aviation and emergency response agencies to take swift and coordinated action,” Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said.

“My thoughts and prayers are with all those on board and their families.

Firefighters work at the site of an airplane that crashed in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, Thursday, June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)
Image:
Pic: AP

Previous Air India crashes

Air India, which started operations in 1932, and its subsidiary Air India Express has suffered several fatal crashes, two of which were caused by acts of terrorism.

According to Aviation Safety Network (ASN) the most recent fatal crash was in August 2020, when Boeing 737-800 (Air India Express) overshot the runway in Karipur, India, rolled down an embankment and broke up, killing 21 people.

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Non-fatal incidents have happened most recently as April this year, when an Air India Express Boeing 737-8HG made contact with an object on the runway during landing in the United Arab Emirates.

Boeing shares fell nearly 8% in premarket US trading on Thursday, after the crash in Ahmedabad.

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Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza

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Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza

An Israeli reservist who served three tours of duty in Gaza has told Sky News in a rare on-camera interview that his unit was often ordered to shoot anyone entering areas soldiers defined as no-go zones, regardless of whether they posed a threat, a practice he says left civilians dead where they fell.

“We have a territory that we are in, and the commands are: everyone that comes inside needs to die,” he said. “If they’re inside, they’re dangerous you need to kill them. No matter who it is,” he said.

Speaking anonymously, the soldier said troops killed civilians arbitrarily. He described the rules of engagement as unclear, with orders to open fire shifting constantly depending on the commander.

The soldier is a reservist in the Israel Defence Force’s 252nd Division. He was posted twice to the Netzarim corridor; a narrow strip of land cut through central Gaza early in the war, running from the sea to the Israeli border. It was designed to split the territory and allow Israeli forces to have greater control from inside the Strip.

He said that when his unit was stationed on the edge of a civilian area, soldiers slept in a house belonging to displaced Palestinians and marked an invisible boundary around it that defined a no-go zone for Gazans.

“In one of the houses that we had been in, we had the big territory. This was the closest to the citizens’ neighbourhood, with people inside. And there’s an imaginary line that they tell us all the Gazan people know it, and that they know they are not allowed to pass it,” he said. “But how can they know?”

People who crossed into this area were most often shot, he said.

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“It was like pretty much everyone that comes into the territory, and it might be like a teenager riding his bicycle,” he said.

IDF whistleblower
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The soldier is seen in Gaza. Photos are courtesy of the interviewed soldier, who requested anonymity

The soldier described a prevailing belief among troops that all Gazans were terrorists, even when they were clearly unarmed civilians. This perception, he said, was not challenged and was often endorsed by commanders.

“They don’t really talk to you about civilians that may come to your place. Like I was in the Netzarim road, and they say if someone comes here, it means that he knows he shouldn’t be there, and if he still comes, it means he’s a terrorist,” he said.

“This is what they tell you. But I don’t really think it’s true. It’s just poor people, civilians that don’t really have too many choices.”

He said the rules of engagement shifted constantly, leaving civilians at the mercy of commanders’ discretion.

“They might be shot, they might be captured,” he said. “It really depends on the day, the mood of the commander.”

He recalled an occasion of a man crossing the boundary and being shot. When another man came later to the body, he too was shot.

Later the soldiers decided to capture people who approached the body. Hours after that, the order changed again, shoot everyone on sight who crosses the “imaginary line”.

IDF whistleblower
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The Israeli soldier during his on-camera interview with Sky News

At another time, his unit was positioned near the Shujaiya area of Gaza City. He described Palestinians scavenging scrap metal and solar panels from a building inside the so-called no-go zone.

“For sure, no terrorists there,” he said. “Every commander can choose for himself what he does. So it’s kind of like the Wild West. So, some commanders can really decide to do war crimes and bad things and don’t face the consequences of that.”

The soldier said many of his comrades believed there were no innocents in Gaza, citing the Hamas-led 7 October attack that killed around 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage. Dozens of hostages have since been freed or rescued by Israeli forces, while about 50 remain in captivity, including roughly 30 Israel believes are dead.

He recalled soldiers openly discussing the killings.

“They’d say: ‘Yeah, but these people didn’t do anything to prevent October 7, and they probably had fun when this was happening to us. So they deserve to die’.”

He added: “People don’t feel mercy for them.”

“I think a lot of them really felt like they were doing something good,” he said. “I think the core of it, that in their mind, these people aren’t innocent.”

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The IDF soldier during one of his three tours in Gaza

In Israel, it is rare for soldiers to publicly criticise the IDF, which is seen as a unifying institution and a rite of passage for Jewish Israelis. Military service shapes identity and social standing, and those who speak out risk being ostracised.

The soldier said he did not want to be identified because he feared being branded a traitor or shunned by his community.

Still, he felt compelled to speak out.

“I kind of feel like I took part in something bad, and I need to counter it with something good that I do, by speaking out, because I am very troubled about what I took and still am taking part of, as a soldier and citizen in this country,” he said

“I think the war is… a very bad thing that is happening to us, and to the Palestinians, and I think it needs to be over,” he said.

He added: “I think in Israeli community, it’s very hard to criticise itself and its army. A lot of people don’t understand what they are agreeing to. They think the war needs to happen, and we need to bring the hostages back, but they don’t understand the consequences.

“I think a lot of people, if they knew exactly what’s happening, it wouldn’t go down very well for them, and they wouldn’t agree with it. I hope that by speaking of it, it can change how things are being done.”

IDF whistleblower
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The soldier is a reservist in the Israel Defence Force’s 252nd Division

We put the allegations of arbitrary killings in the Netzarim corridor to the Israeli military.

In a statement, the IDF said it “operates in strict accordance with its rules of engagement and international law, taking feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.

“The IDF operates against military targets and objectives, and does not target civilians or civilian objects,” the statement continued.

The Israeli military added that “reports and complaints regarding the violation of international law by the IDF are transferred to the relevant authorities responsible for examining exceptional incidents that occurred during the war”.

On the specific allegations raised by the soldier interviewed, the IDF said it could not address them directly because “the necessary details were not provided to address the case mentioned in the query. Should additional information be received, it will be thoroughly examined.”

Read more:
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The statement also mentioned the steps the military says it takes to minimise civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation warnings and advising people to temporarily leave areas of intense fighting.

“The areas designated for evacuation in the Gaza Strip are updated as needed. The IDF continuously informs the civilian population of any changes,” it said.

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Australian mother guilty of murdering three people with poisonous mushrooms

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Australian mother guilty of murdering three people with poisonous mushrooms

An Australian mother has been found guilty of murdering her estranged husband’s parents and an aunt by serving them a beef wellington laced with poisonous mushrooms.

Erin Patterson, 50, invited her former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail Patterson’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, to the fatal lunch on 29 July 2023.

The mother-of-two, from the state of Victoria in southern Australia, has also been convicted of the attempted murder of Mrs Wilkinson’s husband Reverend Ian Wilkinson.

All four fell ill after eating a meal of beef wellington, mashed potatoes and green beans at Patterson’s home in the town of Leongatha, the court was told.

Prosecutors said Patterson knowingly laced the beef pastry dish with deadly death cap mushrooms, also known as Amanita phalloides, at her home.

The guests ate their meals off four large grey dinner plates, while Patterson ate from a smaller, tan-coloured plate, the court heard.

Mrs Wilkinson and Mrs Patterson died on Friday 4 August 2023, while Mr Patterson died a day later.

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Reverend Wilkinson spent seven weeks in hospital but survived.

Ian and Heather Wilkinson
Pic:The Salvation Army Australia - Museum
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Ian and Heather Wilkinson Pic: The Salvation Army Australia – Museum

Reverend Ian Wilkinson arrives at court. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Ian Wilkinson arrives at court during the trial. Pic: Reuters

Her estranged husband Simon Patterson, with whom she has two children, was also invited to the lunch and initially accepted but later declined, the trial heard.

The jury was told that prosecutors had dropped three charges that Patterson had attempted to murder her husband, who she has been separated from since 2015.

Reverend Wilkinson said that immediately after the meal, Patterson fabricated a cancer diagnosis, suggesting the lunch was put together so that she could ask them the best way to tell her children about the illness.

Read more:
Patterson denies measuring ‘fatal dose’
Patterson weeps in court

The four people were fed death cap mushrooms. File pic
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Death cap mushrooms. File pic: iStock

The prosecution said she did this to justify the children’s absence.

The defence did not dispute that Patterson lied about having cancer.

The trial attracted intense interest in Australia – with podcasters, journalists and documentary-makers descending on the town of Morwell, around two hours east of Melbourne, where the court hearings took place.

A sentencing date is yet to be scheduled.

What makes death cap mushrooms so lethal?

The death cap is one of the most toxic mushrooms on the planet and is involved in the majority of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide.

The species contains three main groups of toxins: amatoxins, phallotoxins, and virotoxins.

From these, amatoxins are primarily responsible for the toxic effects in humans.

The alpha-amanitin amatoxin has been found to cause protein deficit and ultimately cell death, although other mechanisms are thought to be involved.

The liver is the main organ that fails due to the poison, but other organs are also affected, most notably the kidneys.

The effects usually begin after a short latent period and can include gastrointestinal disorders followed by jaundice, seizures, coma, and eventually, death.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

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You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow @SkyNews on X or subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.

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Israel attacks Houthi targets at three ports and power plant in Yemen

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Israel attacks Houthi targets at three ports and power plant in Yemen

Israel says its military has attacked Houthi targets at three ports and a power plant in Yemen.

Defence minister Israel Katz confirmed the strikes, saying they were carried out due to repeated attacks by the Iranian-backed rebel group on Israel.

Mr Katz said the Israeli military attacked the Galaxy Leader ship which he claimed was hijacked by the Houthis and was being used for “terrorist activities in the Red Sea”.

A bridge crane damaged by Israeli airstrikes is pictured in the Yemeni port of Hodeidah on 31 July 2024. Pic: Reuters
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A bridge crane damaged by Israeli airstrikes last year in the Yemeni port of Hodeidah. Pic: Reuters

It came after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued an evacuation warning for people at Hodeidah, Ras Issa, and Salif ports – as well as the Ras al Khatib power station, which it said is controlled by Houthi rebels.

The IDF said it would carry out airstrikes on those areas due to “military activities being carried out there”.

Afterwards, Mr Katz confirmed the strikes at the ports and power plant.

Earlier in the day, a ship was reportedly set on fire after being attacked in the Red Sea.

A private security company said the assault, off the southwest coast of Yemen, resembled that of the Houthi militant group.

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From May: Israel strikes Yemen’s main airport

It was the first such incident reported in the vital shipping corridor since mid-April.

The vessel, identified as the Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier Magic Seas, had taken on water after being hit by sea drones, maritime security sources said. The crew later abandoned the ship.

The Houthi rebels have been launching missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in the region in what the group’s leadership called an effort to end Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza.

Between November 2023 and January 2025, the Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors.

The Houthis paused attacks in a self-imposed ceasefire until the US launched an assault against the rebels in mid-March.

That ended weeks later and the Houthis have not attacked a vessel, though they have continued occasional missile attacks targeting Israel.

Read more:
What is the possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal?
‘We’ll never yield’: Millions of Iranians unite in mourning

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A renewed Houthi campaign against shipping could again draw in US and Western forces to the area.

The ship attack comes at a sensitive moment in the Middle East.

A possible ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war hangs in the balance and Iran is weighing up whether to restart negotiations over its nuclear programme.

It follows American airstrikes last month, which targeted its most-sensitive atomic sites amid an Israeli war against the Islamic Republic that ended after 12 days.

How did the Houthis come to control much of Yemen?

A civil war erupted in Yemen in late 2014 when the Houthis seized Sanaa.

Worried by the growing influence of Shia Iran along its border, Saudi Arabia led a Western-backed coalition in March 2015, which intervened in support of the Saudi-backed government.

The Houthis established control over much of the north and other large population centres, while the internationally recognised government based itself in the port city of Aden.

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