Ahmedabad :  A plane crashed in the Meghaninagar area near Ahmedabad airport on Thursday afternoon. The aircraft was under the command of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal with First Officer Clive Kundar, as stated by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Pilot Sumeet Sabharwal

Pilot Sumeet Sabharwal is an Line Training Captain (LTC) with 8,200 hours of experience, while the copilot has 1,100 hours of flying experience. Captain Sumeet Sabharwal was one of the pilots when Boeing 787 Dreamliner had landed in India, at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, in West Bengal.

Captain J M Joseph

Captain J M Joseph piloted the aircraft, along with Boeing instructor Wayne Ridenor, and pilots Sumeet Sabharwal and Sunil Simon kept a hawk eye on the controls, as per a report by The Times Of India.

As per Air Traffic Control (ATC), the aircraft departed from Ahmadabad at 1:39 pm from runway 23. It gave a MAYDAY Call to ATC, but thereafter, no response was given by the aircraft to the calls made by ATC. Aircraft immediately after departure from Runway 23, fell on the ground outside the airport perimeter. Heavy black smoke was seen coming from the accident site, DGCA mentioned, as reported by ANI.

242 Passengers Were On Board

The plane caught fire after crashing and fire tenders were rushed to the spot to douse the blaze, said fire officer Jayesh Khadia. 242 passengers were on board, as per news agency ANI.  “Three National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams, comprising 90 personnel, have been moved from Gandhinagar to the plane crash site. A total of three more teams are being moved from Vadodara,” NDRF told ANI.

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