Air India Ahmedabad - London flight disaster: what we know so far

In the list of passengers there are 169 Indians, 53 British, 7 Portuguese and one Canadian. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani confirmed that there are no Italians involved. The Prime Ministers of India and the United Kingdom, Narendra Modi and Keir Starmer condoled the accident. Modi, who called the tragedy 'heartbreaking', is originally from Gujarat, the state in western India where the crash occurred. The UK is home to a large number of Gujaratis, traditionally one of India's most dynamic and entrepreneurial communities.

For the time being, there is no certainty about the number of casualties on the ground. Indian all news channels showed pictures of several buildings heavily damaged by both the crash and the subsequent fires. To fly a route such as that between Ahmedabad and London, a 787 needs about 130,000 litres of fuel, most of which was still in the plane's tanks at the time of the crash, which occurred shortly after take-off.

Among the affected facilities was a hostel for medical students at a nearby hospital. About fifty are reported to have been hospitalised, while at least five are reported missing.

The airport in Ahmedabad, which with a metropolitan area of 9 million inhabitants is the most populous city in Gujarat, was closed for about three hours.

The investigation of the disaster promises to be complex, not only because at least Indian, US and British investigators will take part, but also because the plane crashed in an urban area. The many heavily damaged buildings will make the work of the investigators and the safe recovery of the black box and the system recording the conversations between the two pilots particularly difficult.

The 787-8 Dreamliner is a highly successful modern twin-engine wide body jet that entered service 14 years ago and is considered extremely safe. Since then, more than 1,150 examples have been produced, 27 of them operated by Air India. Last 30 April, Boeing announced that the Dreamliner had just carried its one billionth passenger. According to the Aviation Safety Network database, this is the first accident with fatalities for this model of Boeing, a manufacturer that in recent years has been at the centre of a serious crisis caused precisely by the safety problems of its 737 Max. By mid-session in New York, the American manufacturer's share price had lost about 5%, while that of General Electric, the company that produces the Dreamliner's engines, was down more than 1.5%.

For the time being, it is difficult to speculate on the possible causes of the accident. The weather conditions were good and a possible bird strike would have had to hit and stall both engines to bring the plane down. Initial ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) data from the flight show that the aircraft reached a maximum barometric altitude of 625 feet (equivalent to about 130 metres above the ground, given that the airport's altitude is about 200 feet) and then began descending at a vertical speed of 145 feet per minute. It is not possible to establish with certainty from the images that the 787's flaps, as claimed by some observers, were not oriented correctly. According to the website Flightradar24, it would not be true that the pilot would have used only half of the runway during take-off.

The accident is also a blow to Air India, the Tata Group airline. The company has been engaged for years in a complex effort to relaunch and upgrade its aircraft after years of under-investment by the state, which has long been the company's sole shareholder. Having said that, Air India is considered a relatively safe company, with a history of accidents in some of its subsidiaries, but it has never been blacklisted by either the EU or the UK. Last year, however, it was fined by the Indian authorities for the work rhythms imposed on its pilots.

'Our priority,' said Air India President Natarajan Chandrasekaran, 'is to provide support to all those affected and their families. The airline has set up an emergency centre and a support team for families seeking information on those who were on board the flight. "Our thoughts and sincere condolences go out to the families and loved ones of all those affected by this tragic event," he added. Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group announced that it will cover the medical expenses of the injured and pay compensation of 10 million rupees, just over 100 thousand euros, for the families of each of the victims.