What we know so far about crashed Indian plane

It’s been just over an hour since we first reported an Air India plane crashed near the airport in Ahmedabad.

Here’s what we know so far:

There were 242 people on board, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew
Of the passengers, there were 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, one Canadian national and seven Portuguese nationals.

The plane – a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner – gave a mayday call to air traffic control after taking off, but then gave no response.

Signal was lost seconds after take-off when the plane had reached 625 feet, according to Flight Radar.

The plane came down in a residential area near the airport.

“Everyone is running right now trying to save as many lives as possible,” a BBC’s Roxy Gagdekar reports from the scene.

People say they heard a loud sound and watched black smoke coming out. Many people started to gather here. Volunteers in the nearby area are trying to help as much as they can.

The fire brigade officials then started the rescue operation. Bodies are still being taken from the area.

There has been no official confirmation about the crash or the number of casualties.

We now have a statement from DGCA, India’s aviation regulator, which says the flight “crashed immediately after take-off from Ahmedabad”.

The statement says:
There were 242 people on board the aircraft, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew (an official earlier said there were 244 people on board).

The captain had 8,200 hours of flying experience. The co-pilot had 1,100 hours of flying experience.

Read also: 53 UK nationals, 169 Indians aboard crashed Indian Boeing 787

The aircraft departed from Ahmedabad at 13:39 IST from runway 23.

It gave a mayday call to air traffic control, but thereafter no response was given by the aircraft.

After departure, the plane crashed outside the airport perimeter.