Final Moments of Pilots and Flight Attendants in Plane Crash Where 241 Perished Released

• Moments after take-off, Air India Flight AI171 issued a desperate mayday call before plunging into tragedy, leaving only one survivor among 242 passengers and crew
• The ill-fated Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into a medical college hostel in Ahmedabad, claiming additional lives on the ground and marking the first-ever fatal accident for the aircraft model
• Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, a veteran pilot months away from retirement, made a final distress call as the aircraft lost power, sealing the fate of one of India's most devastating aviation disasters

The highly experienced captain of the ill-fated Air India flight issued desperate mayday calls in the final seconds before the Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed in western India, claiming the lives of 241 of the 242 passengers and crew on board.

Flight AI171 had barely left Ahmedabad, bound for London’s Gatwick, when it came down at 1.39 pm on Thursday.

In a devastating double tragedy, the aircraft struck a medical college hostel building, killing at least eight people on the ground.

The lone survivor

Among the 242 people on board, only Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British citizen visiting family in India, survived the catastrophe.

Recounting the horrifying experience to Hindustan Times, he said: "Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly."

Captain Sabharwal's mayday call

The aircraft was piloted by Sumeet Sabharwal, a 60-year-old Line Training Captain with over 8,200 flying hours.

Months away from retirement, Sabharwal was widely regarded as a disciplined and professional pilot with no complaints against him.

Sabharwal and his co-pilot, First Officer Clive Kunder, 34, issued a distress call moments after take-off, reporting an alarming loss of power. In his final call to air traffic controllers, Sabharwal urgently declared: "Mayday, no thrust, losing power, unable to lift."

Footage of the take-off depicted the plane losing altitude and speed, with its nose pitched up in a desperate attempt to gain momentum before it plunged into a fireball.

First officer Clive Kunder’s role

Kunder, originally from Karnataka, was certified to operate the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. A graduate of Paris Air Flight School in Florida, he had yet to log the 1,500 flying hours required under Indian aviation regulations to qualify as a commander.

In the flight’s critical moments, he assisted Captain Sabharwal in navigating the aircraft.

Bollywood actor Vikrant Massey, mourning Kunder’s death, shared a personal loss: "My heart breaks for the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives in the unimaginably tragic crash. It pains even more to know my uncle, Clifford Kunder, lost his son Clive, who was the first officer on that fateful flight."

Cabin crew and personal tragedies

The doomed flight was staffed by an all-India crew: Shradha Dhavan, Aparna Mahadik, Saineeta Chakravarti, Nganthoi Sharma Kongbrailatpam, Deepak Pathak, Irfan Shaikh, Manisha Thapa, Roshni Songhare Rajendra, Maithili Patil, and Lamnunthem Singson.

Kongbrailatpam’s sister, Gitanjali Sharma Kongbrailatpam, revealed that becoming a flight attendant was her sister’s lifelong dream. She described their last exchange before take-off, recalling: "We couldn't chat on video as usual due to the internet ban. But she messaged me while I was in school that she would be flying to London and that she would be unreachable."

This tragic event marks the first-ever crash involving a Dreamliner, which has been in commercial operation since 2011. The aircraft that crashed on Thursday was first flown in 2013 and delivered to Air India in 2014, according to Flightradar24 and the Aviation Safety Network.

Airplane carrying 200 passengers crashes

Legit.ng earlier reported that London-bound Air India flight crashed shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad, western India, with more than 200 passengers onboard.

The incident has sent shockwaves across the aviation industry, prompting swift emergency responses, BBC confirmed.

Source: Legit.ng