Air India confirms 241 killed in crash with one survivor

Air India has confirmed that 241 people onboard a flight to London have been killed after it crashed in Ahmedabad, with only one known survivor.

According to reports, Ramesh Viswashkumar, a British national of Indian origin, had been sitting near an emergency exit of the London-bound flight and managed to jump out.

He is being treated in a hospital, the airline confirmed.

The man told Indian media how he had heard a loud noise shortly after Flight AI171 took off. "Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed," Viswashkumar told the Hindustan Times, which showed a boarding pass for seat 11A in that name online.

"It all happened so quickly." 

"When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me," he said. "Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital."

He said that his brother, Ajay, was seated in a different row on the plane. "He was travelling with me and I can't find him anymore. Please help me find him," he said.

Indian media also reported that one of two black boxes from aircraft have been found.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which was headed for London's Gatwick Airport, had crashed onto a medical college hostel during lunch hour on Thursday.

"We are still verifying the number of dead, including those killed in the building where the plane crashed," Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer, told Reuters.

She said the death toll was more than 240, revising down a previous toll of 294. It was not immediately clear how many of the dead had been on the aircraft or on the ground.

Relatives have been asked to give DNA samples to identify the dead, state health secretary Dhananjay Dwivedi said.

Parts of the plane's fuselage were scattered around the smouldering building into which it crashed. The tail of the plane was stuck on top of the building.

The passengers included 217 adults, 11 children and two infants, a source told Reuters. Air India said 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who hails from Gujarat, has visited the site and Air India Chief Executive Officer Campbell Wilson also arrived in the early hours of Friday.

The company has said the investigation would take time. Planemaker Boeing has said a team of experts is ready to go to India to help in the probe.

It was the first crash for the Dreamliner, a wide-body airliner that began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.

The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said.