A day after the deadly Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed killing 241 onboard, Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed at the Ahmedabad airport on Friday morning to meet those injured and receiving treatment at the city’s Civil Hospital.
The operation to clear the debris at the crash site which continued overnight is in its last stages and the search was still on for the Air India flight’s black box — the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. With the reason for the crash still unclear, the black box retrieval is crucial to better understand the last moments of the London Gatwick-bound flight which crashed shortly after takeoff at the Ahmedabad airport
The death toll in the Ahmedabad plane crash has risen to 297. Of the 242 people on board the aircraft, 241 have been confirmed dead, with only one passenger surviving the tragedy. Among the deceased, 229 were passengers and 12 were crew members. In addition, the plane crashed into the hostel of a medical college, killing 56 people present there at the time.
PM Modi visited the crash site and also met the injured undergoing treatment at the civil hospital in the city. . He also took stock of the situation at the crash site and met those injured in the incident. He met Vishwaskumar Ramesh, the lone survivor who was aboard the ill-fated Air India flight AI-171, at the Civil Hospital.
Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patil, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ramamohan Naidu, Gujarat Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi and others accompanied the Prime MInister.
Meanwhile, after India launched a formal investigation into the Air India plane crash, one of the worst air tragedies in recent times, both American and British investigation teams were deployed to support the probe.
The US National Transportation Safety Board announced it would send investigators to assist their Indian counterparts, while British Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed that a UK investigation team had been dispatched.
On the other hand, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has ramped up its emergency response, increasing the number of deployed teams at the crash site to seven. As of Friday morning, 81 bodies were recovered from the wreckage, said NDRF Inspector Vinay Kumar.