An Air India flight bound for London's Gatwick airport crashed on Thursday shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad, western India, with 242 people on board, including 169 Indian and 53 British nationals. Police confirmed the aircraft went down in a civilian area near the airport, though no fatalities have yet been officially reported. Television footage showed fire and thick black smoke rising from a residential zone near the airport. Several people were seen being carried on stretchers and loaded into ambulances. The aircraft, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with registration VT-ANB, departed at 1:39 p.m. local time (0809 GMT) from runway 23. According to air traffic control, the crew issued a Mayday distress call shortly after departure, but communication was then lost. Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 received the last signal from the plane just seconds after takeoff. The crash comes nearly four years after India's last major air disaster, when an Air India Express jet skidded off a runway in Kozhikode, killing 21 people. Air India said it was working to gather further details and would provide updates in due course. Attribution: Amwal Al Ghad English Subediting: M. S. Salama
