There appeared to be no survivors among the 242 passengers and crew aboard an Air India plane that crashed near a major international airport in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, the city’s police commissioner said Thursday.
Footage posted to social media shortly after the crash and verified by NBC News, shows plumes of thick black smoke rising into the sky from a civilian location to the south of the airport.
“It appears there are no survivors in the plane crash,” G.S. Malik, police commissioner for Ahmedabad told The Associated Press, adding that “some locals would have also died” when the plane crashed into a residential area where offices were also located.
“Exact figures on casualties are being ascertained,” he said.
The flight crashed midday local time shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad airport with 242 people aboard.
Earlier in the day, local police told Reuters that more than 100 bodies had been brought to an Ahmedabad hospital. Separately, rescuers said that they had recovered between 30 and 35 bodies from the site.
The plane’s tail could be seen protruding from the wall of a building in a picture from the crash site shared on X by India’s central police force. Other images showed rescuers standing next to charred wreckage and a downed tree near a residential complex.
The flight was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew, a spokesperson for the airline told NBC News.
