New Delhi: An Air India flight AI-171 carrying 242 passengers and crew, which crashed on Thursday, took off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad at 1:39 pm from runway 23 and issued a MAYDAY distress call to air traffic controllers just moments later.
An eyewitness on the ground revealed the horrifying plane crash and said that bodies and debris were strewn all over the place. The man told news agency PTI: “I was at home when we heard a massive sound. When we went out to see what had happened, there was a layer of thick smoke in the air.” He added: “When we came here, dead bodies and debris from the crashed aircraft were scattered all over.”
Another eyewitness said the plane came crashing into a hostel building where her son was present. “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,” Ramila was quoted as saying to ANI. “He jumped from the second floor, so he suffered some injuries.”
‘It looked like a forest fire’
An IndiGo passenger claimed to have witnessed the devastating crash of the Air India flight after it took off from the Ahmedabad Airport on Thursday.
Chandrakant Patil, an IndiGo passenger, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI that he was going to board his flight to Pune when he noticed thick plumes of smoke rising in the distance. He said: “It looked like a forest fire. We took pictures of the smoke, not knowing what it was. Soon after boarding the aircraft, an announcement of a flight delay was made, but we were not told that such a crash had taken place. We got to know about it only after we checked our phones.”
Patil also mentioned the chaos at Ahmedabad airport. He said many passengers were left stranded after the airport closed its operations shortly after the crash. “We are waiting for operations to resume so we can go home,” he pointed out.
