“LAST CALL”
In Ahmedabad, disconsolate relatives of passengers gathered at an emergency centre on Friday to give DNA samples so their loved ones could be identified.
Ashfaque Nanabawa, 40, said he had come to find his cousin Akeel Nanabawa, who had been aboard with his wife and three-year-old daughter. They had spoken as his cousin sat in the plane before takeoff.
“He called us and he said: ‘I am in the plane and I have boarded safely and everything was okay’. That was his last call.”
One woman, too grief-stricken to give her name, said her son-in-law had been killed.
“My daughter doesn’t know that he’s no more,” she said, wiping away tears.
“I can’t break the news to her, can someone else do that please?”
Volunteer rescuers described seeing “bodies everywhere”.
“The bodies were totally burnt. It was like coal,” said Bharat Solanki, 51, who was working at a nearby fuel station and rushed to the site with a couple of friends.
Ahmedabad, the main city in India’s Gujarat state, is home to around eight million people and its busy airport is surrounded by densely packed residential areas.
“One half of the plane crashed into the residential building where doctors lived with their families,” said Krishna, a doctor who did not give his full name.
US planemaker Boeing said it was in touch with Air India and stood “ready to support them” over the incident, which a source close to the case said was the first crash for a 787 Dreamliner.
India’s aviation authorities ordered Air India on Friday to “carry out additional maintenance actions” on its fleet of Boeing 787-8/9 Dreamliners equipped with GEnx engines.
The carrier has 34 Dreamliners, although it was not immediately clear how many have the advanced GEnx engines.
UK and US air accident investigation agencies are sending teams to support their Indian counterparts.
