The pilot of Air India’s doomed plane issued a desperate mayday call moments before it plummeted to the ground and exploded into fire, killing almost everyone on board
The pilot of Air India’s doomed flight out of Ahmedabad issued a desperate mayday call moments before smashing into a doctors’ hostel, killing almost everyone on board.
Captain Sumeet Sabharwal warned the plane was “losing power” just 11 seconds after lift-off but could do nothing to avert the catastrophe.
All but one of the 242 people on board the Air India plane were killed — with one man miraculously walking away with apparently minor injuries — and others lost their lives as the Dreamliner jet crashed into the hostel.
The doomed plane’s experienced pilot, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal. Picture: Supplied
The Air India flight moments before it went down. Picture: Supplied
Shortly after lift-off, the captain called out down his radio: “Mayday … no thrust, losing power, unable to lift”.
Mr Sabharwal had years of experience and had racked up 8200 hours in the air.
The plane had just a few hundred feet of altitude when the power apparently cut out.
The two pilots wrestled for 17 seconds with the controls before the jet careened into the buildings below.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner lost contact just seconds after take-off, according to flight tracking website Flightradar.
The wreckage of the Air India plane after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad, bound for London. Picture: Central Industrial Security Force