Horror moment plane 'explodes' into flame shortly after takeoff
The flight, carrying 165 passengers, was mid-air when a loud boom erupted from one of its engines - before flames and thick smoke began pouring from the left side of the aircraft
A dramatic mid-air explosion forced a passenger jet to turn back just minutes after take-off, in the latest in a troubling wave of aviation incidents gripping the skies.
The American Airlines flight, bound for North Carolina, was mid-air at 8:20am local time on Wednesday when a loud boom erupted from one of its engines. Flames and thick smoke were seen pouring from the left side of the aircraft, captured in alarming footage posted online. There were 165 passengers onboard, but airport spokesperson Luke Nimmo later confirmed the plane returned safely to Harry Reid International Airport and that no injuries were reported.
'The aircraft taxied to the gate under its own power,' Nimmo added, noting that fire crews had inspected the engines after landing. The Federal Aviation Administration has since launched an investigation into what went wrong. It comes amid a spate of air travel disasters across the US and beyond.
Just weeks ago, a small plane crashed in a remote mining area west of Tucson, Arizona, killing two people. The wreckage was found near Green Valley, with Pima County Sheriff's officials describing it as a 'very difficult scene that may last into Friday.' The aircraft, privately owned, had departed earlier that day from Ryan Airfield. The FAA later confirmed it 'crashed under unknown circumstances,' with the National Transportation Safety Board still investigating the circumstances leading to the collision.
In January, tragedy struck Washington DC when 67 people were killed in a catastrophic collision between a passenger jet and a US Army helicopter. The disaster prompted the Trump administration to sack around 400 FAA staff, including key radar and navigation maintenance workers.
Investigations revealed a single air traffic controller had been tasked with managing both commercial and military aircraft at the airport at the time of the crash. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association have warned that staffing shortages are now among the worst in three decades, with exhausted personnel working six-day weeks and ten-hour shifts.
On Tuesday, fresh concerns were raised when the National Transportation Safety Board blamed 'multiple system failures' for a terrifying incident involving an Alaska Airlines jet. In January 2024, a section of the aircraft's fuselage was torn off mid-flight over Oregon, forcing a dramatic emergency landing. Miraculously, all 171 passengers and six crew members survived.
More recently in India, only one person survived a devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad. Air India flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 carrying over 240 people to London, erupted in flames moments after takeoff.
Some pilots have suggested extreme heat may have played a role, warning that hot air can make landing and takeoff more dangerous, while other experts have theorised that an extremely rare double engine failure could have caused the aircraft to go down.
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Daily Mirror
a day ago
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Horror moment plane 'explodes' into flame shortly after takeoff
The flight, carrying 165 passengers, was mid-air when a loud boom erupted from one of its engines - before flames and thick smoke began pouring from the left side of the aircraft A dramatic mid-air explosion forced a passenger jet to turn back just minutes after take-off, in the latest in a troubling wave of aviation incidents gripping the skies. The American Airlines flight, bound for North Carolina, was mid-air at 8:20am local time on Wednesday when a loud boom erupted from one of its engines. Flames and thick smoke were seen pouring from the left side of the aircraft, captured in alarming footage posted online. There were 165 passengers onboard, but airport spokesperson Luke Nimmo later confirmed the plane returned safely to Harry Reid International Airport and that no injuries were reported. 'The aircraft taxied to the gate under its own power,' Nimmo added, noting that fire crews had inspected the engines after landing. The Federal Aviation Administration has since launched an investigation into what went wrong. It comes amid a spate of air travel disasters across the US and beyond. Just weeks ago, a small plane crashed in a remote mining area west of Tucson, Arizona, killing two people. The wreckage was found near Green Valley, with Pima County Sheriff's officials describing it as a 'very difficult scene that may last into Friday.' The aircraft, privately owned, had departed earlier that day from Ryan Airfield. The FAA later confirmed it 'crashed under unknown circumstances,' with the National Transportation Safety Board still investigating the circumstances leading to the collision. In January, tragedy struck Washington DC when 67 people were killed in a catastrophic collision between a passenger jet and a US Army helicopter. The disaster prompted the Trump administration to sack around 400 FAA staff, including key radar and navigation maintenance workers. Investigations revealed a single air traffic controller had been tasked with managing both commercial and military aircraft at the airport at the time of the crash. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association have warned that staffing shortages are now among the worst in three decades, with exhausted personnel working six-day weeks and ten-hour shifts. On Tuesday, fresh concerns were raised when the National Transportation Safety Board blamed 'multiple system failures' for a terrifying incident involving an Alaska Airlines jet. In January 2024, a section of the aircraft's fuselage was torn off mid-flight over Oregon, forcing a dramatic emergency landing. Miraculously, all 171 passengers and six crew members survived. More recently in India, only one person survived a devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad. Air India flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 carrying over 240 people to London, erupted in flames moments after takeoff. Some pilots have suggested extreme heat may have played a role, warning that hot air can make landing and takeoff more dangerous, while other experts have theorised that an extremely rare double engine failure could have caused the aircraft to go down.
The Independent
a day ago
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At least 275 people have been confirmed dead after an Air India flight bound for London crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad, India, on Thursday 12 June, in what is now the world's deadliest air disaster in a decade. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner departed from Ahmedabad airport in the western state of Gujarat at 1.39pm local time (8.09am BST). But after issuing a mayday call, it crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar just five minutes after taking off, India's civil aviation authority confirmed. Gujarat health officials said on 25 June that the final death toll was believed to be 275, including passengers, crew, and residents of the medical college hostel struck by the aircraft. Rescue crews and investigators took days to sift through the charred remains of the hostel and aircraft as large cranes were deployed to clear the debris. 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While it was still unclear what had caused the crash, poor maintenance, a bird strike, engine failure as well as the weather were initially being suggested as the reasons. Investigators have said they are examining possible issues with engine thrust, flap settings, and why the landing gear remained extended after take-off. A bird strike is not currently being considered a likely cause. The temperature in Ahmedabad went over 40C on Thursday and the thinner air would have made take-off more difficult, requiring higher flap settings and greater engine thrust, experts told the BBC and the New York Times. Improper flap extension during take-off could prevent a heavily loaded jet carrying passengers, long-haul fuel and operating in hot conditions from generating enough lift to get airborne. One of the strongest pieces of evidence being reviewed by investigators is a 59-second CCTV video that captured the moment the Air India flight took off and crashed in Ahmedabad. The footage, recorded from the far left of the runway near a barbed-wire fence, shows the plane gaining altitude briefly, flying flat for a few seconds, and then descending with its tail down. The descent began roughly 17 seconds after take-off. No fire is visible around the engines or elsewhere on the aircraft before impact, and the landing gear remains extended throughout the clip. It took just 33 seconds from wheels-up to the fiery crash, which killed nearly everyone on board. A former pilot told the BBC that footage of the airplane was not clear enough to determine if the flaps were correctly extended, but such an error would be 'highly unusual'. Moreover, he said, incorrect flap settings would have set off warnings. But Richard Curran, professor of sustainable aviation at City, University of London, said he had been told by multiple sources that the pilots issued a malfunction warning prior to the crash. Prof Curran, who previously spent 12 years as KLM's chair of engineering and maintenance, told The Independent: 'They actually registered a malfunction. So that means they had a technical problem', adding: 'So it was not a pilot error.' And he dismissed suggestions that multiple bird strikes could have caused dual engine failure, saying: 'These pilots are extremely well trained. They're trained for bird strike. It's one of the basic things that you go through in simulator training as a pilot.' Who was on board the plane? There were 230 passengers and 12 crew members onboard the aircraft. They included 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese citizens and one Canadian, Air India said. The flight was under the command of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, a line training captain with 8,200 hours of flying experience, and First Officer Clive Kundar, who had logged 1,100 hours. There were 10 other crew members on board, civil aviation authorities said. Hundreds of relatives of the crash victims have provided DNA samples at the hospital. Most bodies were charred or mutilated, making them unrecognisable. Gujarat's former chief minister Vijay Rupani was also among the passengers. Rajkot city shut down markets on the Saturday after the crash to mourn his passing. The MP for Leicester East said she understood 'a handful of Leicester residents' were onboard the crashed flight. Shivani Raja told BBC News that her community, which has a high population of British-Gujaratis, were 'all really horrified and devastated waking up to such tragic news'. Who survived the crash? Air India confirmed that 241 of the 242 people on the flight did not survive. A British national was the only person on board to miraculously escape with minor injuries. It was unclear exactly how many people were inside the building that the plane crashed into, but 34 bodies of non-passengers have been recovered. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, was sat in seat 11A and walked away from the crash unaided with minor injuries. His family confirmed his survival, and the BBC said his name was confirmed in the flight manifest shared by the authorities. According to Hindustan Times, he said: 'Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly.' Mr Ramesh, who has lived in the UK with his wife and child for 20 years, was in India for a few days to visit family, according to the Indian outlet. '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,' Hindustan Times reported him as saying. 'Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital.' His brother, Ajay, was also on the flight. A student, Bhumi Chauhan, missed the ill-fated flight by minutes. The 28-year-old business student from Bristol had been visiting Gujarat with her husband and was booked on Air India flight AI171, which crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad on Thursday. Ms Chauhan says she had checked in online and reached Ahmedabad airport at 12:20pm local time, just 10 minutes after boarding was due to start. "I got late because I was stuck in traffic. I was upset (after being denied boarding) and reached the airport exit when I learnt the plane had crashed," she told Indian news channel NDTV, She had travelled 200km from Ankleshwar but was delayed by city traffic. Ms Chauhan said she was disappointed when she missed her flight, but minutes later everything changed. "I was getting ready to step out of the airport when I learnt about the crash. I began shivering. My legs started trembling. I felt numb for quite some time," she said. "My Ganpati ji (Hindu god) saved me," she added. Medical college hostel struck The aircraft crashed into a hostel building at the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Medical College and Civil Hospital. 'The plane was flying very low before it crashed,' eyewitness Haresh Shah told local news agency PTI. 'As it crashed into the building, the sound was like a blast and the plane and the building caught fire.' College dean Minakshi Parikh told reporters that four students living in the hostel had died and 19 were injured. 'Two third-year students are untraceable. A doctor's wife was also killed while two relatives of other doctors were injured. Three members of a doctor's family went missing after the incident,' she said. Dhaval Gameti, president of the resident doctors' association at the college, said 50-60 people had been injured. Footage from the scene showed aircraft debris in the hostel's dining area, with some tables left with uneaten food on the plates. What is the status of investigation? Investigators have recovered the plane's digital flight data recorder, or the black box, which was recovered from a rooftop near the crash site and likely will lead to clues about the cause of the accident. India 's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has succeeded in extracting the data from the flight data recorder. The device is expected to reveal information about the engine and control settings, while the voice recorder will provide cockpit conversations. A team of four officials from the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), with expertise in aircraft operations, engineering and flight data, is now working in Ahmedabad alongside American and Indian counterparts. "Their role is to provide additional support and expertise to the safety investigation being led by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau," the government said. Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata – which owns Air India – said this was one of the 'darkest days' in the group's history and promised full transparency. 'We don't know right now [what caused the crash], but we will,' he said. What is known about the Boeing aircraft? The plane involved was a Boeing 787 'Dreamliner' delivered to Air India in 2014. This was the first fatal incident involving the 787. Soon after the Dreamliner entered service in 2011, concerns over fire risk from lithium batteries led to a temporary grounding. But there was no indication yet that the crash was connected to any technical issues onboard the aircraft. More than 1,000 Boeing 787 aircraft are in service with dozens of international airlines, including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, both of which have exemplary safety records. The aircraft is described by the US manufacturer as 'the bestselling passenger widebody of all time' with some 2,000 orders from 89 customers. The planes have carried more than one billion passengers on nearly five million flights. When was the last plane crash in India? The last fatal plane crash in India was in 2020 and involved the airline's low-budget arm Air India Express. The Boeing-737 overshot a 'table-top' runway at the Kozhikode International Airport in southern India, skidded off and plunged into a valley, crashing nose-first into the ground. The crash killed at least 21 people. Where can I find out information about the victims? Air India has set up a dedicated passenger hotline number 1800 5691 444 to provide more information. 'Air India is giving its full cooperation to the authorities investigating this incident,' the airline said. The airline has also set up assistance centres for friends and relatives at the airports in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Gatwick to 'provide support and take care of the needs of the families and loved ones'. The centres are also facilitating travel for family members to Ahmedabad, it said on X.
