30 seconds of disaster: Airport CCTV captures moments of Air India plane bursting into ball of fire

As many as 241 people were killed after an Ahmedabad-London Air India plane carrying 242 passengers and crew crashed into a medical college complex in Gujarat's Ahmedabad minutes after takeoff on Thursday.

A CCTV footage from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport shows the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (AI171) losing altitude rapidly after takeoff and combusting in a fiery blaze that sent plumes of thick black smoke spiralling up in the air.

Ahmedabad plane crash: CCTV footage captures the video of Air India flight 1771 from its take-off to crash#AhmedabadAirport #AhmedabadPlaneCrash #PlaneCrash #BreakingNews #AirIndia #AhmedabadMore updates here: https://t.co/LAgQfMxmb8 pic.twitter.com/3njuP20yh0
News18 (@CNNnews18) June 12, 2025

The plane crashed into the city civil hospital and BJ Medical College near the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport and burst into a ball of fire.

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.

After it was earlier reported that there were no suvivors on the ill-fated plane, the police found a lone miracle survivor - Vishwash Kumar Ramesh - a British national who was returning to UK after his visit to Gujarat.

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).

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

Eyewitnesses in Ahmedabad said the blaze was so intense that it led to several multi-storey buildings being burnt, trees singed and cars damaged. One image showed the snout of the plane crashing through the top floor of a building that appeared to be a dining area of the hostel of nurses and doctors.