Shocking video has emerged showing the exact moment Air India Flight 171 plummeted from the sky just five minutes after takeoff — erupting into flames and slamming into a crowded Ahmedabad neighborhood.
Only five minutes after Air India Flight 171 lifted off the runway – scheduled to fly from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick – the sky over Gujarat turned into a canvas of black smoke and unspeakable horror as the passenger plane crashed, killing everyone on board.
“Air India confirms that flight AI171, from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, was involved in an accident today after take-off.
“The flight, which departed from Ahmedabad at 1338 hrs, was carrying 242 passengers and crew members on board the Boeing 787-8 aircraft. Of these, 169 are Indian nationals, 53 are British nationals, 1 Canadian national and 7 Portuguese nationals,” the airline tweeted.
Rising tower of smoke
The skyline of Ahmedabad – a sprawling metropolis of over 5 million people and the capital of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat – was suddenly pierced by a rising tower of smoke and fire. Local television channels broadcast scenes so harrowing they bordered on apocalyptic.
What was moments ago a neighborhood of bustling homes and families became a blackened battlefield of wreckage, fire, and loss.
Slammed into city
Smoke billowed relentlessly from the mangled remains of Air India Flight AI171, twisting through the city’s airspace as sirens wailed in every direction. The aircraft, heavy with fuel from its London-bound journey, had erupted into flames after slamming into a populated area just outside the airport perimeter.
The intensity of the explosion scorched not just the jet, but also adjacent multi-story buildings, their windows shattered, their walls blistered from the radiant heat, AP reports.
Firefighters were seen blasting water not just onto the smoldering carcass of the aircraft but onto nearby structures threatened by the blaze. It was a desperate bid to contain an inferno that had already claimed far too much.
The wreckage sprawled across rooftops and alleyways, broken into unrecognizable fragments of metal and ash.
‘Dead bodies and debris’
For many, the most gut-wrenching sight came in the form of charred bodies that were strewn along the crash site, their identities lost in smoke and flame.
“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. When we came here, dead bodies and debris from the crashed aircraft were scattered all over,” one eye witness told Times of India of the horrifying scene.
“It felt like an earthquake… smoke everywhere, bodies all around,” another resident told local media.
Horrifying clip
But, one of the most terrifying images shows the plane carving through the sky before plunging to the ground and bursting into flames.
The tragic footage, captured just after takeoff from Ahmedabad, has left millions around the world reeling in horror and heartbreak.
For many, the video was their first horrifying glimpse of what was supposed to be a routine international flight – a nightmare caught frame by frame in real-time.
This isn’t just another crash. It’s a human tragedy – captured on camera, broadcast to the world, and forever etched into the hearts of those left behind.
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