Flames and smoke in aftermath of crashed India passenger jet

Flames and smoke in aftermath of crashed India passenger jet

Rescue officials work at the site where Air India flight 171 crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad

Thick black plumes of acrid smoke towered high above India's Ahmedabad airport Thursday after a London-bound passenger jet with 242 people aboard crashed shortly after takeoff.

While officials initially said everyone aboard was feared dead, state health official Dhananjay Dwivedi told AFP later that one passenger had survived after the plane smashed into a residential area.

Several videos posted on social media, which AFP was not able to immediately verify, showed an aircraft rapidly losing altitude -- with its nose up -- before it hit a building and exploded into an orange ball of fire.

Authorities said it went down outside the airport perimeter, in a crowded residential area, while an AFP reporter in the city said the plane crashed between a hospital and the city's Ghoda Camp neighbourhood.

A medic described how the burning plane had smashed into a residential block that is home to medical students and young doctors.

"One half of the plane crashed into the residential building where doctors lived with their families," said Krishna, a doctor who gave only one name, adding he saw "about 15-20 burnt bodies" in the wreckage and debris.

It was not clear whether the dead he had seen had been killed on board the plane, or had been in the building the aircraft ploughed into.

- Bodies burned -

"The nose and front wheel landed on the canteen building where students were having lunch," he said, adding he and colleagues had "rescued some 15 students from the building and sent them to hospital".

"When we reached the spot there were several bodies lying around and firefighters were dousing the flames," resident Poonam Patni told AFP.

"Many of the bodies were burned", she added.

Another resident, who declined to be named, said: "We saw people from the building jumping from the second and third floor to save themselves. The plane was in flames.

"We helped people get out of the building and sent the injured to the hospital."

Air India's flight 171 -- a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London's Gatwick Airport -- crashed shortly after takeoff around 1:40 pm (0810 GMT), officials said.

The passengers included 169 Indian nationals, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and a Canadian. Two pilots and 10 cabin crew were also aboard.

Rescue teams supported by the military had recovered 204 bodies, city police commissioner GS Malik told AFP, with people aboard the plane and those on the ground among the dead.

Some 41 people were being treated at local hospitals.

- 'Massive sound' -

At the crash site, firefighters could be seen trying to control flames on the burning plane debris that also charred trees.

One video, from social media but posted by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency, showed what appeared to be a chunk of fuselage -- larger than a car -- that had smashed onto the roof of a multi-storey building.

Photographs released by India's Central Industrial Security Force, a paramilitary police force, showed a large chunk of the plane that had smashed through the brick and concrete wall of a building. 

"I was at home when we heard a massive sound," one Ahmedabad resident told PTI.

"When we went out to see what had happened, there was a layer of thick smoke in the air. When we came here, dead bodies and debris from the crashed aircraft were scattered all over."

Outside Ahmedabad airport, a woman wailing inconsolably in grief said that five of her relatives had been aboard the plane.

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Originally published as Flames and smoke in aftermath of crashed India passenger jet