Late Night, Search For Crash Survivors

Ahmedabad:“The plane was flying very low before it crashed,” eye-witness Haresh Shah said on Thursday, hours after an Air India-operated Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft lost height and fell in a crowded residential area. “As it crashed into the (medical college hostel) building, the sound was like a blast, and the plane and the building caught fire,” he said. A strong stench of aviation fuel mixed with scorched human flesh lingered in the air hours after the London-bound Air India plane crashed here on Thursday afternoon. Nine hours after the tragic incident, remnants of fires still flickered on charred stems of trees surrounding the crash site, a haunting reminder of the ferocity of the blaze, PTI said. Local residents were the first to reach the site and try to save the passengers as well as those in the building. Initial footage shot by residents on mobile phones and widely aired on social showed charred bodies among the debris. “The plane crashed in the dining hall of the hostel where people were present. Many of them were injured and taken to hospital,” another eye-witness told PTI. The rescue operations were still ongoing as rescuers were trying to find survivors, Ahmedabad city police commissioner G S Malik said. The unbearable stench pervaded the premises of the BJ Medical College and civil hospital. Three buildings bore the brunt of the impact, including a mess hall where several MBBS students were dining when the aircraft came down. The adjoining two five-storey buildings, home to hospital staff, also suffered severe damage as the resultant inferno raged through them. The buildings were completely blackened. Massive pieces of debris lay strewn across the site, including mangled metal, twisted beams and charcoaled remains of the buildings reduced to blackened shells. A large fragment of the aircraft's wing lay on the ground. The tail-end of the aircraft remained lodged in the mess building, an image that has since gone viral on social media. Rescue teams, comprising personnel from the Gujarat Police, Fire Department, and multiple emergency agencies, were still at work late into the night. Earth movers were deployed to break through collapsed walls and concrete rubble in a desperate bid to reach survivors and recover bodies. The Army, Border Security Force, local police and State Reserve Police Force were involved in the rescue operation. Several cars and other vehicles parked on the hospital-college premises also caught fire.