A terrible and tragic incident.  An Air India Boeing 787 departing Ahmedabad, India, crashes into a populated area during departure.  Details begin to surface and there are no survivors from the airplane, and many killed on the ground.  There are no words for incidents like this, only prayers for those lost and for the families of those now encompassed by unimageable grief.

(via AP) – […] Air India said the Gatwick Airport-bound flight was carrying 242 passengers and crew, with 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. The Boeing 787-8 crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off at 1:38 p.m. (08:08 GMT), Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, the director general of the directorate of civil aviation, told AP.

Black smoke billowed from the site where the plane crashed into a medical college hostel and burst into flames near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city of more than 5 million and the capital of Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state.

Firefighters doused the smoking wreckage of the plane, which would have been fully loaded with fuel shortly after takeoff, and adjacent multistory buildings with water. Many charred bodies lay on the ground and parts of the fuselage were scattered around the site. Indian army teams were assisting civil authorities to clear debris and help treat the injured.

Visuals also showed the tail cone of the aircraft with damaged stabilizer fins still attached to it lodged near the top of one of the buildings.

In a social media post, Modi called the crash “heartbreaking beyond words” and said “my thoughts are with everyone affected.”

“It appears there are no survivors in the plane crash,” city police chief G.S. Malik told The Associated Press. Malik said the dead could include both passengers and those on the ground.  “Exact figures on casualties are being ascertained,” he added. (read more)