‘Ultimate test’: A first responder’s account of Ahmedabad AI crash

NEW DELHI: Even as the world awaits the final findings on the Air India flight AI-171 crash that claimed 260 lives on June 12 last year, a senior officer has penned a first-hand account of the tragedy and its chaotic aftermath.

- Neeraj Chauhan

The AI-171 crash site in Ahmedabad city, in this complex, updated photo of the crash site in 2022.

In “Sentinel 2026”, the annual journal of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), the Chief Airport Security Officer (CASO) at Ahmedabad airport and a Deputy Inspector General (DIG) rank officer — Apoorv Pandey — recounted how events unfolded in the crucial minutes after the London-bound aircraft went down just seconds after take-off nearly a year ago.

Recalling how the crash was an ultimate “test of emergency readiness for Ahmedabad”, Pandey lauds the airport's CISF unit for mobilising over 200 personnel within 12 minutes, rescuing over 50 people, and transferring the injured to hospitals. His account also highlighted the extraordinary, makeshift measures adopted by the force amid the chaos, including using sarees and broken wires for crowd control, even as the airport simultaneously went into a full-scale terror alert.

On June 12, 2025, the Air India flight AI171, operated by a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner and bound for London Gatwick, crashed into a medical college hostel complex shortly after take-off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. The aircraft caught fire on impact. Of the 242 people on board, 241 died, along with 19 people on the ground. Earlier this month, Union civil aviation minister Rammohan Naidu said that the investigation into the Air India Flight AI-171 crash is in its final stage, with the report “expected within a month”.

First responders, lifesavers