On June 12, 2025, at 1:38 p.m. IST, Air India Flight AI-171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, lifted off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, bound for London Gatwick. Carrying 242 souls—230 passengers, including former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, and 12 crew members—the flight was commanded by Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, a seasoned pilot with 8,200 hours of experience, alongside First Officer Clive Kundar, with 1,100 hours.
Within seconds, the aircraft issued a Mayday call, reached a mere 625 feet, and plummeted into the Meghani Nagar neighborhood, crashing into a doctors’ hostel at B.J. Medical College. The impact unleashed a fireball, fueled by the plane’s heavy load for the nine-hour transcontinental journey, killing at least 204 people, including passengers and residents, and injuring 41.
Only one passenger, 40-year-old British-Indian Vishwashkumar Ramesh, survived, escaping through an emergency window. As the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) probes this catastrophe—the first fatal crash of a Boeing 787 and Air India’s worst since 1985—this investigative story pieces together verified facts to explore what went wrong and why India’s aviation safety remains under scrutiny.
The sequence of events, captured by chilling CCTV footage and Flightradar data, is stark. Flight AI-171 took off from Runway 23 at 1:39 p.m., achieving a barometric altitude of 625 feet and a vertical speed of 896 feet per minute, with a ground speed of 174 knots.
Yet, within 30 seconds, the aircraft’s ADS-B transponder signal was lost at 230 feet, just before the threshold of Runway 05. Eyewitnesses reported a loud noise, followed by the plane descending nose-up, its landing gear unretracted, and flaps seemingly retracted, before it struck the hostel, igniting a blaze visible from Vastrapur. Vishwashkumar Ramesh, seated in 11A, told Hindustan Times, “Thirty seconds after takeoff, there was a loud noise, and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly.” His survival, amidst charred bodies and debris, underscores the crash’s suddenness and severity.
Initial suspicions point to a technical failure. The aircraft, an 11-year-old Boeing 787-8 (VT-ANB), delivered to Air India in January 2014, had recently undergone refurbishing, raising questions about maintenance quality. Hindustan Times cited sources suggesting an engineering issue, possibly linked to the refurbishment, though no official confirmation has emerged. Aviation expert Paul Edwards, speaking to Sky News, noted anomalies in the takeoff: the unretracted landing gear and potential misconfiguration of slats and flaps, critical for generating lift.
“There are two things needed for an aircraft takeoff: adequate airspeed and a rate of climb. And that had neither,” Edwards said. Former pilot Captain Saurabh Bhatnagar told NDTV that the descent suggests a loss of engine power or insufficient lift, though he cautioned that only the investigation will clarify the cause. The Boeing 787’s General Electric GEnx-1B67 engines, known for reliability, make a dual-engine failure unlikely, as former NTSB investigator Jeff Guzzetti noted to AP, emphasizing that a single engine should suffice for climb. Yet, video evidence showing no smoke or fire before impact rules out a bird strike, pointing instead to a possible systemic failure.
The crash’s context invites comparison to India’s aviation safety record. The 2010 Mangalore crash (Air India Express Flight IX-812) and the 2020 Kozhikode crash (Flight IX-1344) both involved Boeing 737s and pilot error, with 158 and 21 fatalities, respectively. Unlike Ahmedabad, those crashes occurred during landing on tabletop runways, highlighting terrain-related risks. However, Ahmedabad’s urban proximity mirrors the 2000 Patna crash, where a Boeing 737 killed 56, including five on the ground, after hitting a residential area. Ahmedabad’s airport, handling 13 million passengers annually, is India’s seventh busiest, and its location near densely populated Meghani Nagar amplified the tragedy. The hostel strike killed three MBBS students and hospitalized 45, with uneaten plates of food signaling the crash’s abrupt intrusion during lunch. These parallels suggest systemic issues—urban airport risks, maintenance oversight, and potential human factors—that persist in Indian aviation.
Pilot error, while unconfirmed, cannot be dismissed. The Mayday call indicates the crew recognized an emergency, but their failure to respond to subsequent ATC calls suggests they were overwhelmed. Captain Sabharwal’s experience contrasts with First Officer Kundar’s relatively low hours, raising questions about crew resource management (CRM). The 2010 and 2020 crashes exposed CRM deficiencies, where co-pilots’ warnings were ignored. Here, the rapid sequence—30 seconds from takeoff to crash—may have left no time for corrective action. Aviation consultant John Cox told AP that the 787’s extensive flight data recorder, capturing thousands of parameters, will be crucial in determining whether the crew misconfigured the aircraft or faced an unrecoverable mechanical fault.
Boeing’s role is under scrutiny, as this is the first fatal 787 crash since the model’s 2011 debut. The company, already reeling from the 2018 Lion Air and 2019 Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crashes (346 total deaths), issued a statement offering support to Air India. The 787’s clean safety record and advanced systems make this incident anomalous, but the recent refurbishment raises concerns about maintenance by Air India or third-party contractors. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), criticized for lax oversight in a 2023 report, faces pressure to ensure transparency. The AAIB, joined by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch, is analyzing the wreckage, with Boeing’s technical team assisting. The heavy fuel load, necessary for the 9-hour flight, intensified the fire, complicating rescue efforts by the Indian Army, NDRF, and CISF.
The human toll is staggering. Among the 204 confirmed deaths, Vijay Rupani’s loss marks the second time a former Gujarat CM has died in a plane crash, following Balwantrai Mehta in 1965. The passenger manifest included 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian, reflecting Ahmedabad’s global ties. The Tata Group, Air India’s owner, pledged ₹1 crore (£86,000) per victim’s family and medical support for the injured. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel coordinated relief, with Shah visiting the site. The UK, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, deployed crisis teams, reflecting the loss of 53 British nationals.
The crash’s timing, amid India’s aviation boom—projected to hit 19.8 million passengers at Ahmedabad by 2026—underscores the stakes.
What went wrong? The answer lies in the black box, now under AAIB scrutiny. Was it a maintenance flaw from the recent refurbishment, a rare dual-engine failure, or a configuration error by an experienced crew? The unretracted landing gear and retracted flaps suggest a lift deficiency, but the rapid descent defies easy explanation. India’s aviation safety, marred by a 1.87 accident rate per million departures (higher than the global average), demands systemic reform. The DGCA’s history of corruption and delays in 48% of crash investigations since 2018 raises doubts about accountability. As Ahmedabad mourns, the nation awaits answers to ensure its skies do not claim more lives.