A British national has miraculously survived after an Air India plane crashed in a huge fireball on its way to London killing nearly 300 people, his family has said.
Police found the survivor in seat 11A, Ahmedabad police commissioner GS Malik said according to Indian news agency ANI.
Unconfirmed reports in India claim the survivor is a British national who had minor injuries and walked away from the crash unaided. Footage of a man apparently walking from the site of the crash has circulated widely on social media.
The passenger was named as Vishwash Kumar Ramesh in the flight manifest shared by authorities, the BBC reports. According to Hindustan Times, he said: “Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly.”
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Mr Ramesh was in India for a few days to visit family but has lived in London with his wife and child for 20 years, he said according to the Indian outlet.
“When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me. Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital,” HT reported him as saying.
More than 290 people were killed in the plane crash, a police source told Reuters news agency.
There were 242 people on board the flight, including 12 crew members. Air India said the passengers included 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese citizens and one Canadian.
The Indian and British prime ministers said authorities were keeping them updated about the incident. “It is heartbreaking beyond words,” Narendra Modi said on X. Sir Keir Starmer said the scenes were “devastating”.
The Boeing 787 aircraft left Ahmedabad airport in the western Indian state of Gujarat at 1.39pm local time (8.09am BST) on Thursday.
But after issuing a mayday call, it crashed into the residential neighbourhood of Meghani Nagar just moments after taking off.
Video and images from the city show plumes of smoke pouring from the wreckage of the plane, with firefighters seeking to douse the charred remains of buildings impacted by the crash.
A police official told Reuters that the plane had hit a hostel building for doctors, with officials saying there are believed to be medics among the dead.
