At least 241 people died in an Air India crash on Thursday near Ahmedabad, a city in western India. The plane, a Boeing 787 with 242 people onboard bound for London and identified as flight AI 171, crashed into a residential area shortly after takeoff, said Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, director general of the directorate of civil aviation.
A single survivor found in the aftermath recounted his experience. “Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed,” the survivor, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, told a local media outlet from his hospital bed. “It all happened so quickly.”
The death toll slowly rose in the hours after the incident—making it the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a massive fireball when the plane crashed. Imagery posted on social media by news outlets shows debris on fire, with thick black smoke rising into the sky near the airport.