Ahmedabad Plane Tragedy

On June 12, 2025, Air India Airlines flight number AI-171 crashed in Ahmedabad. This incident also raises many important questions in the field of disaster management and aviation safety.

About the Ahmedabad plane crash

• What happened: Air India's Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft crashed into a medical college at a distance of 6 km from the runway. The cause of the accident is not yet known and investigation is going on.
  • This plane was going from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad to Gatwick Airport in London.
  • Air India is currently owned by Tata.
• Aircraft: Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art, long-range aircraft equipped with GE GEnx engines.
• Flight: Ahmedabad to London, about 4,200 km. The plane was filled with 1.25 lakh liters of fuel for the distance of 100 km, the weight of the plane was 227 tons.
• Conditions: Clear weather, temperature 43°C, runway just 180 feet above sea level, air was thin due to heat, which reduces lift and thrust.
• Chief Pilot: Captain Sumit Sabharwal (8,200 hours of flying experience).
• Accident: The plane crashed in Meghani Nagar, Ahmedabad, 5 minutes after takeoff.
  • The plane reached a height of only 825 feet and its speed was only 174 knots (320 km/h), whereas Boeing 787 needs a speed of at least 200-250 knots at this weight.
• People on board: Total 242 (230 passengers, 2 pilots and 10 crew members)
  • Among them were 103 men, 114 women, 11 children and 2 newborns.
  • Among them were 169 Indians, 53 British, 7 Portuguese and 1 Canadian citizen.
• Human loss: At least 265 people have died in this incident.
  • The death toll has increased due to the plane falling on the medical school.
  • Among the passengers on board, only the passenger sitting near the emergency door survived.

Other major plane accidents in India

• On January 1, 1978, Air India Flight number AI-855 (named Emperor Ashoka) Boeing 747-237 B crashed into the Arabian Sea soon after taking off from Mumbai's Santacruz International Airport (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport).
• On June 23, 1985, Boeing 747-237B of Air India flight AI-182 (named Emperor Kanishka) crashed mid-air in the Atlantic Ocean off the Cork coast of Ireland due to a terrorist attack. This plane was coming from Montreal to Mumbai.
• On October 19, 1988, Boeing 737-200 of Indian Airlines flight number 113 crashed near Ahmedabad airport.
• On February 14, 1990, Airbus A320 of Indian Airlines flight number 605 crashed near HAL airport in Bengaluru.
• On August 7, 2020, Boeing 737 of Air India Express flight number 1344 (operated under Vande Bharat repatriation mission) crashed at Kozhikode International Airport.
• On May 22, 2010, a Boeing 737 of Air India Express flight number 812 crashed after skidding off the runway while landing at Mangaluru International Airport from Dubai.
• On July 17, 2000, a Boeing 737-200 of Alliance Air flight number 7412 crashed into a residential area while attempting to land in Patna.
• On November 12, 1996, a Boeing 747 of Saudia Flight 763 and an Ilyushin Il-76 of Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 crashed in Charkhi Dadri, Haryana after colliding with each other mid-air due to communication failure.
• On May 31, 1973, a Boeing 737-200 of Indian Airlines Flight number 440 crashed near Delhi airport.