Air India Passenger Jet Crashes After Takeoff

An Air India passenger plane bound for London with 242 people onboard crashed Thursday in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad, the airline and local media reported, per the AP and the BBC. There was no immediate word on survivors. The airline initially said there were 244 on board.

• Visuals on local television channels showed smoke billowing from the crash site near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city with a population of more than 5 million.
• Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, director general of the directorate of civil aviation, told the AP that Air India flight AI 171, a Boeing 787-8, crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off at 1:38pm local time.

• The New York Times reports that most of the passengers, 169, were Indian nationals. At least 53 British nationals were also aboard, along with seven Portuguese passengers and a Canadian.
• The plane put out a mayday call before the crash, but no details were available on the source of the trouble.

(More plane crash stories.)