What to know about the Air India plane crash that killed more than 240 people

AHMEDABAD, India — (AP) — The Air India plane crash this week was one of India's worst aviation disasters, killing 241 people on board and several people on the ground.

Indian authorities said Friday the investigation into the crash was underway and is expected to include experts from the plane's maker Boeing and U.S. aviation regulators.

The Air India plane crashed minutes after takeoff Thursday afternoon in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad. Surreal images captured both the plane's last moments and the horror of the crash site, with rescuers picking through smoking debris as they searched for survivors.

Here's what is known about the crash:

The lone survivor was a passenger, Vishwashkumar Ramesh, a British national of Indian origin.

Ramesh was thrown from the aircraft and walked to an ambulance, according to Dr. Dhaval Gameti, who treated Ramesh. The doctor told The Associated Press that Ramesh was disoriented, with multiple injuries, but that he seemed to be out of danger.

Another medic said Ramesh told him that immediately after the plane took off, it began descending and suddenly split in two, throwing him out before a loud explosion.

The airline said there were no other survivors among the 242 passengers and crew on board.

Security camera footage verified by The Associated Press showed the plane taking off and then veering slightly to the side. It then drops into a downward glide, disappears briefly from sight and hits the ground.

Moments later, a huge orange and black fireball appears, rising high into the air.

At the crash site, the tail cone of the aircraft with damaged stabilizer fins still attached was lodged near the top of a building. The plane's jagged cavity has torn into the facade. A web of cracks spirals outward from the plane's impact.

The battered building in Ahmedabad was the dining area for medical students and they were having lunch when the plane crashed.

Indrajeet Singh Solanki, a witness and rescuer, said that at first it was chaotic, with smoke everywhere.

"We could see some small parts (of the plane) burning. Just like this wing lying over here,” he said. “Through the smoke, we kept rescuing injured people and rushed them to the trauma center in the civil hospital in auto rickshaws. We rushed nine people to the hospital.”

The airline had been plagued by tragedy and financial losses under prior state ownership.

In 2010, an Air India flight arriving from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, overshot the runway in Mangalore, India, and plunged over a cliff, killing 158 of the 166 people on board. In 2020, a flight for the Air India Express subsidiary skidded off a runway in southern India during heavy rain and cracked in two — killing 18 people and injuring more than 120 others.

An Air India Boeing 747 flight crashed into the Arabian Sea in 1978, killing all 213 aboard.

The carrier was under government control from 1953 through 2022.

The Boeing 787 went into service in 2009. This was the first crash of the model, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.

The 787 Dreamliner was the first airliner to make extensive use of lithium ion batteries, which are lighter, recharge faster and can hold more energy than other types of batteries. In 2013 the 787 fleet was temporarily grounded because of overheating of its lithium-ion batteries, which in some cases sparked fires.

There was no information yet about possible causes of the crash. Authorities were searching the crash site Friday as part of the investigation, and there was no word whether the plane's black boxes — the flight data and cockpit voice recorders — had been recovered.

Crash investigators are likely looking at whether the plane was configured correctly for takeoff, whether the engines lost power during takeoff and whether the crew inputted information correctly about the hot temperature outside as well as the weight of the fuel and passengers. Aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti said a mistake in the data the crew put into the plane’s system could result in the flaps and slats being set incorrectly.

“We can see what we see on video and all of these potential issues we’re talking about: fuel, engine thrust, settings for the flaps and slats. That’s all going to be recorded on the flight data recorder,” said Guzzetti, who is a former crash investigator for both the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration. “And the cockpit voice recorder will hopefully have the discussion between the crew on what kind of performance numbers are being put into the computer."

Of course it's still too early to know what caused the crash, but the flight data recorder that investigators have already recovered should quickly provide some answers. Another aviation consultant, John M. Cox, said the video of the last moments of the flight raises questions about whether the flaps and slats were set correctly.

“The image shows the airplane with the nose rising and it continuing to sink,’’ he said. “That says that the airplane is not making enough lift.’’

The slats and flaps should be positioned so that the wing makes more lift at lower speeds, said Cox, who is the CEO of Washington DC-based Safety Operating Systems.

“It’s hard to tell but from looking at the aircraft from behind … it doesn’t look like that the trailing edge flaps are in the position I would have expected them to be,’’ he said. “But I’m very cautious that the image quality is not good enough to make that a conclusion. It’s just an area where I know that they’re going to look.’’

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Klug reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writer Josh Funk contributed to this report from Omaha, Nebraska.

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