Air India Crash Kills 4 MBBS Students, Doctor’s Wife

Ahmedabad:Four MBBS students and a doctor's wife were among those killed after a London-bound Air India plane crashed into residential quarters of the BJ Medical college here on Thursday afternoon, a senior official said.

Two other MBBS students and three relatives of doctors are missing, she said.

The picture of the tail portion of the aircraft resting on the building, which caught fire soon afterwards, has quickly become one that defined the horror of the crash.

Pictures showed damage to the inside of the building, with what appeared to be the landing gear of the aircraft hanging from one of the balconies.

An eyewitness, Haresh Shah, told PTI. “There are several five-floor buildings which serve as residential quarters. Many people in those apartments were injured as the buildings also caught fire,” he said. Another eyewitness said several cars and vehicles parked in the premises also caught fire.

A resident, who declined to be named, told AFP: “We saw people from the building jumping from the second and third floor to save themselves. The plane was in flames. When we reached the spot there were several bodies lying around and firefighters were dousing the flames,” another resident, Poonam Patni, said.

One Dr Krishna told AFP that “the nose and front wheel landed on the canteen building where students were having lunch.” He said he and his colleagues rescued around 15 students.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner operating flight AI171 carrying 242 peple members crashed in Meghaninagar soon after the take-off from the Ahmedabad airport at 1.39 pm.

“While four MBBS students living in the hostel died, 19 were injured. Five of them are serious. Two third-year students are untraceable,” college dean Dr Minakshi Parikh told reporters.

“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. All other doctors and relatives are safe,” said Parikh.