Death toll in AI plane crash touches 270
Ahmedabad/New Delhi: The death toll in the London-bound Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad rose to 270 on Saturday even as the Centre set up a high-level multi-disciplinary panel headed by the Union home secretary to examine the causes that led to the disaster.
As investigators pore over wreckage at the BJ Medical College hostel and canteen complex for clues after the crash of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner(AI171) on Thursday, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said aviation regulator DGCA has ordered “extended surveillance” for the Tata-owned airline’s Boeing 787 series planes.
In a post on X, Air India said it has done one-time safety checks on nine of its Boeing 787 Dreamliners and is on track to complete the checks on the remaining 24 such planes as directed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation(DGCA).The carrier now has 26 legacy Boeing 787-8s and seven Boeing 787-9s in its fleet.
All but one of the 242 passengers and crew on board AI171 and another 29 persons including five MBBS students on the ground were killed when the aircraft came down moments after taking off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport before falling inside the nearby campus of the state-run BJ Medical College in Meghaninagar area and going up in flames.
“Around 270 bodies have been brought to the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital so far from the plane crash site,” President of Junior Doctors association of BJ Medical College, Dr Dhaval Gameti, told PTI. The death toll in the country’s worst ever air disaster in three decades was earlier put by authorities at 265.
