Search teams scour Air India plane crash site as death toll rises to 270, relatives press for answers

The Associated Press

· Posted: Jun 14, 2025 8:13 AM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

Search and betterment teams continued scouring the tract of 1 of India's worst aviation disasters for a 3rd time aft the Air India formation fell from the entity and killed astatine slightest 270 radical successful Gujarat state, officials said Saturday.

The London-bound Boeing 787 struck a aesculapian assemblage hostel successful a residential country of the northwestern metropolis of Ahmedabad minutes aft takeoff Thursday, sidesplitting 241 radical connected committee and astatine slightest 29 connected the ground. One rider survived.

Recovery teams moving until precocious Friday recovered astatine slightest 25 much bodies successful the debris, officials said.

Dr. Dhaval Gameti astatine the Civil Hospital successful Ahmedabad said the installation had received 270 bodies, adding the lone surviving rider was inactive nether reflection for immoderate of his wounds.

WATCH | How a man ended up being the lone subsister of Air India crash:

"He is doing precise good and volition beryllium acceptable to beryllium discharged anytime soon," Gameti said Saturday.

Hundreds of relatives of the clang victims person provided DNA samples astatine the hospital. Most bodies were charred oregon otherwise unrecognizable.

'Where are my children?'

Some relatives person expressed vexation that the process is taking excessively long. Authorities accidental it usually takes up to 72 hours to implicit DNA matching and they are expediting the process.

"Where are my children? Did you retrieve them?" asked Rafiq Abdullah, whose nephew, daughter-in-law and 2 grandchildren were connected the flight. "I volition person to inquire questions. Government is not answering these questions."

Another comparative persistently asked infirmary unit erstwhile his relative's assemblage would beryllium handed implicit to the household for past rites.

"Give america the body," the comparative insisted.

Among those connected the formation was a Canadian citizen, Mississauga, Ont., dentist Dr. Nirali Sureshkumar Patel, her hubby has confirmed.

Alongside the ceremonial investigation, the Indian authorities says it has formed a high-level, multi-disciplinary committee to analyse the causes starring to the crash.

The committee volition absorption connected formulating procedures to forestall and grip craft emergencies successful the aboriginal and "will not beryllium a substitute to different inquiries being conducted by applicable organizations," the Ministry of Civil Aviation said successful a statement.

Investigators connected Friday recovered the plane's integer formation information recorder, oregon the achromatic box, which was recovered from a rooftop adjacent the clang tract and apt volition pb to clues astir the origin of the accident.

India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said it had started moving with "full force" to extract the data.

The instrumentality is expected to uncover accusation astir the motor and power settings, portion the dependable recorder volition supply cockpit conversations, said Paul Fromme, a mechanical technologist with the U.K.-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Data recorder cardinal to getting speedy answers

Aviation information advisor Jeff Guzzetti, a erstwhile clang researcher for some the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration, said investigators should beryllium capable to reply immoderate important questions astir what caused the clang arsenic soon arsenic adjacent week, arsenic agelong arsenic the formation information recorder is successful bully shape.

Investigators apt are looking astatine whether helping flaps were acceptable correctly, the motor mislaid power, alarms were going disconnected wrong the cockpit and if the plane's unit correctly logged accusation astir the blistery somesthesia extracurricular and the value of the substance and passengers, Guzzetti said.

Mistakes successful the information could effect successful the helping flaps being acceptable incorrectly, helium said.

Thursday's clang progressive a 12-year-old Boeing 787. Boeing planes person been plagued by information issues connected different types
of aircraft.

There are presently astir 1,200 of the 787 Dreamliner craft worldwide, and this was the archetypal deadly clang successful 16 years of operation, according to experts.