Rescuers Encounter Haunting Visuals at Air India Crash Site

At the scene were scattered bodies, charred plane parts and mangled luggage

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AHMEDABAD — Students of the B.J. Medical College were having lunch in their hostel dining hall on June 12 when a Boeing 787 jet loaded with fuel smashed into the building and exploded.

Air India Flight AI171 had taken off just minutes earlier from a nearby airport in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, before making a perilous descent that ended in the death of all but one of the 242 people aboard.

The number of casualties among those on the ground and in the building the plane slammed into is less clear.

Those that rushed to the site in the wake of the crash were met with haunting visuals: a charred plane wing lay strewn across a road. Fragments of another wing and engine parts were nearby, along with clothes and mangled bags. A pungent smell of burnt debris lingered in the air.

"The blast was so intense that no one could approach the site initially," said Mr. Rajesh Patel, a 56-year-old real estate businessman.

He was heading home for lunch on the afternoon of June 12, but instead spent the next seven hours helping to pull out bodies from the wreckage along with rescue workers.