Air India has confirmed that 241 people on board a flight to London Gatwick have died after the aircraft crashed shortly after take-off – with just one person surviving.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which was carrying 53 Britons, crashed into a doctors’ hostel in a residential area moments after taking off from Ahmedabad airport, in western India.
Air India has said 229 passengers and 12 crew died. Authorities have not confirmed how many people on the ground were killed or injured.
The airline said it “offers its deepest condolences to the families of the deceased”.
“Our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of all those affected, their families and loved ones,” the statement continued.
The sole survivor is British man Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who was travelling on the flight with his brother.
Image: Vishwash Kumar Ramesh. Pic: Hindustan Times
He told the Hindustan Times newspaper he heard a “loud noise” around 30 seconds after take-off before the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner went down.
“It all happened so quickly,” he said, adding that he suffered “impact injuries” to his chest, eyes and feet. “When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran.”
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Moment of fatal plane crash in India
The passengers included 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese nationals and one Canadian national.
In a statement posted on Facebook, Gloucester Muslim Community said Akeel Nanabawa, his wife Hannaa and their four-year-old daughter Sara had died in the crash.
They said: “No words can truly ease the pain of such a profound loss, but we pray that the family may find solace in the tremendous outpouring of compassion and solidarity from communities across the world.”
Image: Akeel Nanabawa, his wife Hannaa and their four-year-old daughter Sara. Pic: PA
Also on the flight were married couple Fiongal and Jamie Greenlaw-Meek from west London. They had posted a video from the airport on their Instagram feed shortly before boarding.
Image: Fiongal and Jamie Greenlaw-Meek. Pic: Instagram
Videos show the aircraft, which departed from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick at 1.38pm local time, struggling to gain altitude in the seconds after taking off.
It then begins to descend and a fireball can be seen as the plane crashes, with massive plumes of thick black smoke rising into the sky.
Other images show the aircraft’s tail after it crashed into the roof of the BJ Medical College Hostel in the Meghaninagar area.
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Video shows huge plumes of smoke near Indian airport
Tata Sons, which owns the airline, said it will give around £86,000 to the families of each person who died, cover the medical expenses of those injured, and provide support to rebuild the medical hostel.
Ahmedabad airport said the plane crashed “shortly after take-off, outside the airport”. Flights were suspended until shortly after 4pm local time.
In a statement, London Gatwick said the flight was due to land at 6.25pm UK time on Thursday and a reception centre for relatives of those on board was set up where information and support will be provided.
Flight tracking website Flightradar said a signal was last received from the aircraft less than a minute after take-off.
It is the first ever crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.
The model, a widebody, twin-engine plane, has made five million journeys in the 14 years since its first passenger flight.
Image: The aircraft before the crash. Pic: Takagi
Image: The plane crashed in a residential area. Pic: NDTV
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Sir Keir Starmer said the scenes emerging were “devastating”. He added: “Our hearts and our thoughts are absolutely with the friends and families of all of those affected.”
The prime minister said the British government is in “constant contact” with the Indian authorities and has dispatched an investigation team of its own.
The King said he and the Queen were “desperately shocked by the terrible events” in a post on X.
“Our special prayers and deepest possible sympathy are with the families and friends of all those affected by this appallingly tragic incident across so many nations, as they await news of their loved ones,” he said.
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Rescuers rush to airport
The foreign office said the UK is “working with local authorities in Indiato urgently establish the facts and provide support to those involved”.
British nationals who require consular assistance are advised to call 020 7008 5000, while Air India has set up hotlines to provide information on 1800 5691 444 for those calling within India and +91 806 2779 200 for foreign nationals.
India’s prime minister Narendra Modi said in a post on X: “The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us.
“It is heartbreaking beyond words. In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected by it.”
India’s worst aviation tragedy in decades
It’s the worst aviation tragedy the country has seen in decades, writes Sky News India correspondent Neville Lazarus.
The images of the aircraft plunging to the ground into a fireball and the horizon filled with black smoke will haunt the nation for a very long time.
Some 242 passengers, including children and 12 crew members, were on the ill-fated flight.
The aircraft, which lost altitude soon after take-off, crashed into residential quarters of BJ Medical College doctors in Ahmedabad’s Meghaninagar area.
Images of parts of the plane can be seen hanging precariously on the building of the hostel, having caused severe damage.
A large number of residents are feared dead in the speciality doctors’ buildings, which have 94 flats and about 200 people living in them.
The nation is in shock as bodies, some beyond recognition, are being brought into hospitals across the city. There are many injured and some in critical condition.
India’s civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said he was “shocked and devastated” to learn about the crash.
“We are on highest alert,” he said. “I am personally monitoring the situation and have directed all aviation and emergency response agencies to take swift and coordinated action.
“Rescue teams have been mobilised, and all efforts are being made to ensure medical aid and relief support are being rushed to the site.”
Image: Pic: AP
Aviation expert Julian Bray told Sky News he understands the pilot managed to make a mayday call, meaning the crew was aware of a problem before the crash.
Air India was acquired by Tata Group from the Indian government in January 2022 after racking up billions of pounds of losses.
The group now operates more than 8,300 weekly flights on 312 routes, connecting more than 100 domestic and international destinations with a fleet of 300 aircraft.
Image: Rescue workers at the crash site. Pic: Reuters
Image: Pic: AP
The airline’s chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran described the incident as a “tragic accident” and a “devastating event” and said emergency response teams were at the site.
“At this moment, our primary focus is on supporting all the affected people and their families,” he said.
“We are doing everything in our power to assist the emergency response teams at the site and to provide all necessary support and care to those impacted.”
A Boeing spokesperson said: “We are in contact with Air India regarding Flight 171 and stand ready to support them. Our thoughts are with the passengers, crew, first responders and all affected.”
The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was stabbed in the back and the arm after going to the class with her younger sister.
She is now campaigning for children to have mandatory first aid training at school in response to the growth of knife crime.
She said she clearly remembers what happened that day.
Image: Flowers and tributes near the scene of the attack a year ago. Pic: PA
“Some of the girls were sat down in a circle making bracelets with the teachers, and a couple of them were getting up to get beads. I was standing between two tables and he came through the doors.
“He stabbed a little girl in front of me and then came for me and stabbed my arm. I turned and then he stabbed my back, even though I didn’t feel it at the time.
“There was a bunch of girls huddled around so I just started pushing them down the stairs, telling them to get out and run.
“I was thinking ‘Where’s my sister?’ and ‘We need to get out’.”
She and many of the other victims ran to the house of a neighbour for shelter. “I just thought that I was going to die,” she said.
Killer ‘looked possessed’
The girl said she can clearly picture Rudakubana that day.
“What I remember most about him is his eyes. They just didn’t look human, they looked possessed. It was kind of like a dream and you’re on a movie set and watching yourself go through it and make these decisions.
“It’s just kind of like adrenaline. People like to think they know what they’d do in that situation but, in reality, you don’t until you’re in it.”
Image: Alice da Silva Aguiar, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King were murdered in the attack
Six-year-old Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe, who was seven, and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar died in the attack. It is something she finds difficult to talk about.
“I don’t think I can express how I feel about it,” the girl said. “A lot of anger and sadness.”
In January, Rudakubana was jailed for life and must serve a minimum of 52 years before he can be considered for release.
The chairman of the public inquiry into the atrocity called the attack “one of the most egregious crimes in our country’s history”.
Carrying knives ‘disgusting’
The girl who survived has now launched a campaign, supported by a clothing range called “Go Anywhere, Be Anything” to raise funds, to improve the ability of schoolchildren to help in the event of knife attacks.
“Everyone that’s going out and carrying knives is getting younger and younger,” she said. “And to think that it’s people my age is like disgusting.
“I just want to try and do the best I can to let people know that it’s not okay to do that and that they need to think about what they’re doing and the risks and how they’re harming themselves and other people.”
Her sister, who was also there that day, helped design “Go Anywhere, Be Anything”.
A three-minute silence will be held in Southport at 3pm to mark one year on from the attack. In an open letter to the community, Sefton Council wrote: “This period is incredibly hard for the families of Alice, Bebe and Elsie and all of those children and adults injured or who suffered lifelong psychological impact of witnessing the attack, and we acknowledge the huge impact on their lives, too.
“We must not forget the local people who rushed to support and to our emergency responders. They all remain always in our thoughts.”
It is a sentiment shared by the survivor.
“You live in fear every day that it could happen again,” she said.
“Physically I’m getting better every day and healing. Obviously, my scars stay as a reminder but everyone from that day is going to have mental scars forever.”
The scale of cheap Chinese e-commerce imports flown into Britain without paying any tariffs has become clearer following a Sky News investigation into this new multi-billion pound phenomenon.
We have uncovered the first official estimate of the value of so-called “de minimis” imports into Britain, ahead of an official inquiry into whether this legal clause – which excludes packages worth less than £135 from paying customs duties – should be allowed to continue.
Companies like Shein and Temu have become big players in British retail, not to mention elsewhere around the world, by manufacturing cheap products in China and then posting them directly to consumers, benefiting from the de minimis rules.
Clothing manufacturers in the UK claim that de minimis makes it nearly impossible to compete with these Chinese competitors, raising questions about the viability of domestic textile and apparel production.
However, economists argue that the main beneficiaries of the policy to exclude cheap imports from customs are lower-income households, since it allows them to spend less on their shopping. Removing it, they say, would disproportionately affect poorer families.
The government has committed to an inquiry into the rules, which are also being changed in the EU and the US, but up until now there has been no official estimate of its scale.
According to HM Revenue and Customs data released to Sky News following a Freedom of Information request, the total declared trade value of de minimis imports into the UK in the last fiscal year (2024-25) was £5.9bn.
That was a 53% increase on the previous year (£3.9bn), underlining the scale of growth of e-commerce imports into the UK.
While it is hard to gauge how much revenue this means the Treasury has forgone, an illustrative 20% tariff on flows of that order could raise more than £1bn.
While that sum alone would not fill the fiscal black hole faced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the coming budget, it would nonetheless be nearly enough to pay for the government’s recent U-turn on winter fuel allowances.
Sky has also obtained the first television access deep into the supply chain, helping bring those goods into the UK, as it boarded a flight that had just travelled from Chongqing to Bournemouth Airport.
We filmed inside the belly of a plane belonging to European Cargo, one of a number of air cargo firms booming as a result of these trade flows.
The untold story about de minimis is that it hasn’t just had an impact on shopping habits in the UK, or for that matter, the textiles manufacturing sector – it has also changed patterns of distribution.
Struggling regional airports that never saw their passenger numbers recover after the pandemic are now re-establishing themselves as hubs for cargo.
European Cargo is now the single biggest airline at Bournemouth Airport, despite not carrying a single passenger.
Other regional airports like East Midlands Airport and Prestwick in Scotland are seeing rapid growth in flows of trade.
All of which raises the stakes for the government’s inquiry into the de minimis system.
At present, there is no timeline for its decision, but removing the clause would have far-reaching effects across the economy.
The team’s open-top bus will travel along The Mall from 12.10pm.
It will end with a staged ceremony at the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace, which is expected to start at roughly 12.30pm and end at 1pm, the Football Association (FA) announced.
The Royal Marines Portsmouth band and the Central Band of the Royal Air Force will perform on the stage and highlights from the tournament will be shown on big screens.
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Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey was one of those who asked the prime minister if it was “time for that bank holiday”.
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He was referring to comments made by Sir Keir in 2023. When, as leader of the opposition, he wrote on X that there “should be a celebratory bank holiday if the Lionesses bring it home”.
But with estimates suggesting an extra bank holiday would cost the economy £2.4bn, it’s understood such a move isn’t being planned by Downing Street.
‘There is no stopping them now’
The impact of the Lionesses second consecutive Euros title is already being felt across the UK.
At Bearsted Football Club in Maidstone, Kent, a mural of Alessia Russo, who levelled Sunday’s final with a goal in the 56th minute, has been unveiled.
Image: Alessia Russo scoring the levelling goal. Pic: Reuters
The club is where Russo first started playing, and chairman Jamie Houston told Sky News the Lionesses have helped transform the women’s game.
“Five years ago we never had a girl’s football team,” he told Sky correspondent Mollie Malone. “Now we have five separate teams for girls, and boys are accepting of more girls in the game.
“There is no stopping them now.”
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Lynda Hale, who played in the England squad in the first ever international women’s match against Scotland in 1972, reiterated that women’s football has changed drastically since she played.
“When I first started playing there was hardly anyone that would watch,” she told Sky News Breakfast.
“To put on the England shirt and think what we started has grown to this magnitude, and it is still going to grow, is absolutely fantastic. I think the sky’s the limit in women’s football.”
Asked what advice she would have for the current England squad after their win, Ms Hale said: “The girls need to make as many memories as they can and take everything in their stride.”