This article was automatically translated from HIBAPRESS, the Arabic version:
Hibapress
The record of the Boeing 787 Crash of Air India, which occurred Thursday near Ahmedabad airport, in the state of Gujarat, in the northwest of India, increased to 274 dead, reports several local media on Saturday.
According to the English -speaking daily The Times of India, this new assessment includes 33 additional deaths recorded on the ground, probably those present on the BJ Medical College campus, part of which was directly struck by the apparatus at the time of the crash.
The authorities initially confirmed the death of 241 occupants of the aircraft, passengers and crew members combined.
The AI171 flight, connecting Ahmedabad to London-Gatwick, crashed less than a minute after takeoff, which occurred on Thursday at 1:39 p.m. (08:09 GMT), according to the Indian civil aviation authorities. The plane had launched an almost immediate distress call before damaging a residential area.
According to the airline, the apparatus carried 230 passengers, including 169 Indian nationals, 53 British, 7 Portuguese and a Canadian, as well as 12 crew members.
The only identified survivor, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, was seated at the front left of the aircraft, in place 11 A, near one of the emergency doors.
The Minister of the Interior Amit Shah said Thursday that the final number of victims can only be confirmed after the current DNA tests.
The origin of the crash remains unknown. Several hypotheses are mentioned, including a simultaneous failure of the two engines, an extremely rare scenario, an avian impact or an dysfunction of the wing shutters.
Friday, the investigators recovered one of the two black boxes of the plane, the flight data recorder, and continued on Saturday to search the site to find the second, the cockpit conversations recorder.
According to the NDTV news channel, a high -level inter -ministerial commission, chaired by the interior secretary, was set up to investigate the causes of the disaster. This body will be responsible for making detailed recommendations to prevent future accidents of this type.
This is the very first accident involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner since the entry into commercial service of this model in 2011. The accidental apparatus, delivered to Air India in January 2014, had produced its first flight a year earlier, in 2013, according to data from the Flightradar24 site.
India had already experienced a major air tragedy in May 2010, when an India air flight from Dubai, operated by a Boeing 737, had missed its landing at Mangaluru airport. The plane had crashed in a ravine below the track, causing the death of 158 people.
