Ahmedabad plane crash: 5 dead on BJ Medical College campus, over 50 injured

Dr Rohan Krishnan, chief patron of the Federation of All India Medical Association, told ANI that at least 50 people have been injured on campus and that the crash has damaged the MBBS students’ hostel and the residential block of super-speciality doctors.

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All but one of the 242 passengers aboard the ill-fated flight are reported to have been killed in the crash. The flight, bound for London, had crashed roughly five meaning after take-off at 1.38 pm. Of the 230 passengers, 169 were Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. The other 12 were two pilots and 10 crew members.

Crash happened at lunchtime

Reports said doctors and nurses at the hostel were having food when the crash happened. One photo showed the snout of the plane crashing through the top floor of the building where the dining area was located.

Visuals from the wreckage area showed bodies being pulled out and the injured, many with burns, wheeled into the city's civil hospital close by.

Eyewitnesses in Ahmedabad told PTI that the blaze was so intense that it led to several multi-storey buildings being burnt, trees being singed, and cars getting damaged.

Elsewhere, too, there were scenes of complete devastation with mangled metal of the wreckage, snarls of tangled wire and smoke rising from burning embers.

Eyewitness accounts

Several eyewitnesses on the busy, everyday afternoon described the horror of what they had seen.

“The plane was flying very low and it crashed into the residential quarters of doctors and nursing staff of the civil hospital and BJ Medical college,” Haresh Shah, a witness to the crash, told PTI.

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“There are several five-floor buildings which are residential quarters of doctors and nursing staff. Many people in those apartments were injured as, along with the plane, the buildings also caught fire,” he said.

Another said several cars and vehicles parked on the premises also caught fire.

The mother of a medical student who was at the hostel when the crash happened said her son was having lunch at the dining hall and jumped from the second floor of the building to save himself.

"My son had gone to the hostel during lunch break, and the plane crashed there. My son is safe, and I have spoken to him. He jumped from the second floor, so he suffered some injuries," the woman named Ramila told ANI at the civil hospital in Ahmedabad.

Mayday call by pilot

The pilot of the twin-engine wide-bodied aircraft issued a 'Mayday' distress call, denoting a full emergency, soon after takeoff at 1.39 pm, the Air Traffic Control at Ahmedabad said.

The search was also on for the aircraft's black box – the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder – for clues to understand what happened in the last crucial moments.

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The 11-year-old aircraft could be seen from miles away, losing altitude rapidly and combusting in a fiery blaze that sent plumes of thick black smoke spiralling up in the air.

The aircraft climbed just about 600-800 feet before plummeting to the ground almost immediately, aviation sources said.

Former Gujarat chief minister and BJP leader Vijay Rupani was among the passengers on the doomed flight to London’s Gatwick airport.

“The aircraft departed from Ahmedabad at 1339 IST (0809 UTC) from Runway 23. It gave a MAYDAY Call to ATC, but thereafter no response was given by the aircraft to the calls made by ATC,” according to a statement from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).