Video shows Air India plane descending over Ahmedabad, crashing behind buildings
The moments before an Air India passenger plane crashed in western India Thursday were captured in a video filmed from a building near the crash site, CBS News has verified.
The footage shows the plane, which had departed from the Ahmedabad Airport just minutes before with more than 240 people on board, descending over the city. It then disappears behind buildings and there is a large explosion. A huge fireball is seen billowing above the buildings.
The Air India flight, AI171, had departed for London's Gatwick airport at 1:38 p.m. local time, the airline said. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was carrying 242 passengers and crew.
One passenger on the plane survived the crash, the airline and officials said. The survivor, a British national of Indian origin, was being treated at the hospital.
Casualties were also reported on the ground where the plane crashed, including at a medical college.
An investigation into the cause of the crash is being led by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau. A U.S. team led by the National Transportation Safety Board was going to India to assist.
The plane lost signal less than a minute after takeoff, according to . It appeared to reach an altitude of about 625 feet before descending. The crash happened five minutes after takeoff, the head of India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, told The Associated Press.
The plane appeared to have its landing gear down and flaps up when those should have been reversed, former NTSB Chair Robert Sumwalt told CBS News.
Aviation consultant John M. Cox told the AP the type of plane has "extensive flight data monitoring."
"The parameters on the flight data recorder are in the thousands," he said. "So once we get that recorder, they'll be able to know pretty quickly what happened."
The incident was the first crash of a 787-8 Dreamliner, according to Boeing's April 2025 statistical summary of incidents involving its aircraft.
