By Mfonobong Ekott

June 14, 2025

Image: This handout taken and posted on the X (formerly Twitter) account of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) On June 12, 2025 shows the back of an Air India plane after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad.

Grieving families waited Saturday for news after one of the deadliest air disasters in decades, with the toll rising to 279 people killed in the Indian passenger jet crash. The Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner issued a mayday call shortly before it crashed around lunchtime on Thursday, bursting into a fireball as it hit residential buildings.On Saturday, a police source said that 279 bodies had been recovered from the crash site in the northern Indian city of Ahmedabad, one of the worst plane disasters of the 21st century.

Photo: Kalpesh Patni mourns the death of his 14-year-old brother Akash Patni, who was sleeping on the ground when Air India flight 171 crashed in a residential area, at the hospital mortuary in Ahmedabad on June 13, 2025.

There was one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the jet when it crashed, leaving the tailpiece of the aircraft jutting out of a hostel for medical staff.

Photo: This screengrab of video footage taken and released by the Narendra Modi Youtube Channel on June 13, 2025 shows India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) meeting with Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, sole survivor of the Air India flight 171 crash, at a hospital in Ahmedabad.

At least 38 people were killed on the ground.”I saw my child for the first time in two years. It was a great time,” said Anil Patel, whose son and daughter-in-law had surprised him with a visit before boarding the Air India flight.”And now, there is nothing,” he said, breaking down in tears. “Whatever the gods wanted has happened.”

Photo: 19-year-old Hiren Kantilal, cousin of Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, gives an interview to an AFP journalist in the street outside the family home of Vishwash, the sole survivor of an Air India crash in Ahmedabad City in India, in Leicester, central England on June 13, 2025.

– Search for black box –

Distraught relatives of passengers have been providing DNA samples in Ahmedabad, with some having to fly to India to help the process.

The official casualty number will not be finalised until the slow process of DNA identification is completed.Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members.

Photo: Women mourn as the bodies of their relatives, killed the previous day after Air India flight 171 crashed in a residential area, are taken out of a hospital mortuary in Ahmedabad on June 13, 2025.

Those killed ranged from a top politician to a teenage tea seller.The lone survivor, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, said he could not explain how he survived.”Initially, I too thought that I was about to die, but then I opened my eyes and realised that I was still alive,” Ramesh, a British citizen, told national broadcaster DD News from his hospital bed.

Photo: Debris of Air India flight 171 is pictured after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on June 13, 2025.

Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Friday that a flight data recorder, or black box, had been recovered, saying it would “significantly aid” investigations.

Photo: Rescue officials are seen near the wreckage of Air India flight 171 after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025. A London-bound passenger plane crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on June 12 and all 242 people on board were believed killed, with the jet smashing into buildings housing doctors and their families.

Forensic teams are still looking for the second black box, as they probe why the plane crashed after lifting barely 100 metres (330 feet) from the ground. US plane maker Boeing said it was in touch with Air India and stood “ready to support them” over the incident, which a source close to the case said was the first crash for a 787 Dreamliner.

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