 "The Boeing Air India plane had taken off from Ahmedabad at 1.39 pm from Runway 23 from Gujarat's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.")
There are reports that all 242 passengers on board the Air India flight which crashed in Ahmedabad have been killed.
The Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner carrying two pilots, 10 cabin crew and 230 passengers crashed just after take-off and hit a hostel.
But what happened in the moments after the plane took off?
Let’s take a closer look
The Mayday call
The Boeing Air India plane had taken off from Ahmedabad at 1.39 pm from Runway 23 from Gujarat’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.
Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, the pilot of the Boeing Air India plane, sent a Mayday call moments before the crash.
A Mayday is code for a distress signal all around the world.
Read Ahmedabad Plane Crash LIVE updates here.
It means that a life-threatening emergency is imminent.
Sabharwal, who had 8,200 hours of flight experience, reached out to Air Traffic Control (ATC) with a distress call.
His co-pilot was First Officer Clive Kundar, who had 1,100 hours of flying experience.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said that Sabharwal did not respond to any instructions from Air Traffic Control thereafter.
The DGCA said that the aircraft fell outside the airport and crashed near Meghaninagar.
The hostel
The plane also turned left and crashed into the BJ Medical College hostel after landing.
Five students were killed and several others injured in the incident.
This includes four undergraduate students and a postgraduate resident.
The students were having lunch in the canteen when the plane crashed into the hoste.
Visuals from the ground show plates with food left uneaten and glasses on the table.
The wall of the hostel mess has also been damaged in the incident.
“We are deeply shocked about the news of AI plane crashing in Ahmedabad. News have become more gruesome after finding out that flight had crushed in BJMC, Hostel & many MBBS students have also been injured!!!! We are monitoring the situation closely & are ready for any help!” the FAIMA Doctors association wrote on X.
What do experts say?
Experts say that multiple bird hits may have caused the engines of the Boeing aircraft to lose power after take-off.
Captain Saurabh Bhatnagar, former senior pilot, told NDTV, “It looks, prima facie, like a case of multiple bird hits wherein both the engines have lost power. The take-off was perfect and just, I believe, short of taking the gear up, the aircraft started descending, which can happen only in case the engine loses power or the aircraft stops developing lift. Obviously, the investigation will reveal the exact reason.”
“From the footage, it seems that the take-off was uneventful. The aircraft came down in a controlled fashion. The pilot had given the Mayday call, which means that it was a distress situation,” he added.
With inputs from agencies