Indian authorities have revised the death toll of the flight AI171 crash downwards because some remains had been inadvertently counted twice, they said.
One of two black boxes from the Boeing 787 Dreamliner that crashed moments after taking off from Ahmedabad in Gujarat on its flight to London Gatwick airport has been recovered, Reuters has reported. Investigators continue to scour the crash site and surrounding buildings over 24 hours after the deadly crash as they seek further human remains and aircraft parts that will form part of their inquiry into why the aircraft fell out of the sky less than a minute after take-off.
While the presumed death toll steadily climbed on Thursday, it has now been revised downward twice. In the first instance, the flight was presumed to have been lost with all 242 hands given the force of the crash and ensuring fireball, but one miraculous survivor was discovered as walking wounded. Later, the 242 figure increased to 290 to include those who perished in the buildings the Boeing jet crashed into, but this too has now been revised.
People stand around the debris of an airplane after it crashed in India’s northwestern city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, Thursday, June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)
Indian authorities have given the latest death toll at 241 killed onboard and 24 killed on the ground, for 265 in total. The reason given for the change, a senior police officer who spoke out said, because some body parts had been double-counted in the initial assessment.
Yet this provisional total will not be confirmed for some time as the human remains are to be DNA-tested to confirm exactly how many people have been recovered. Relatives of the dead have been urged to come forward by authorities for DNA swabs so they can be matched.
As stated in the Indian national press, in some cases identification may be more straight forward as the vast majority of dead were found still strapped into their seats.
Because the Indian authorities quickly published the whole flight manifest with the names of all passengers, the single survivor of flight AI171 — the inhabitant of seat 11A, on the exit row directly next to the door — was quickly identified. UK citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who lives in the city of Leicester met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and also spoke to the media about his ordeal.
Agence France-Press reported he said: “Everything happened in front of me, and even I couldn’t believe how I managed to come out alive from that… Within a minute after takeoff, suddenly… it felt like something got stuck… I realised something had happened”.
Explaining he felt the sensation of the aircraft accelerating in the final moments — perhaps as it plunged towards the ground — Ramesh continued: ” Everything was visible in front of my eyes when the crash happened… Initially, I too thought that I was about to die, but then I opened my eyes and realised that I was still alive… I unfastened my seatbelt and tried to escape”. The survivor said the exit door had been damaged on impact but there was a gap large enough for him to squeeze through.
He said: “My left hand got slightly burnt due to the fire, but an ambulance brought me to the hospital”.
The Indian government has ordered Air India to perform safety inspections on its full fleet of Boeing 787s, but has stopped short of grounding the planes.
