📰 Air India Flight AI171 Crash – Ahmedabad, 12 June 2025

On 12 June 2025 at approximately 1:39 p.m. IST, Air India Flight AI171, a Boeing 787‑8 Dreamliner (tail number VT‑ANB), crashed just seconds after departing Ahmedabad Airport, bound for London Gatwick.

242 people were on board: 230 passengers and 12 crew

241 on board were killed, with one survivor — a British-Indian man named Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, seated in 11A

The crash also struck a doctors’ hostel at B.J. Medical College, killing at least 28 people on the ground and injuring around 60 others

Flight AI171

A Poem for the Fallen – June 12, 2025

They boarded with passports and boarding pass slips,

With weary goodbyes and half-smiling lips.

A father, a daughter, a stranger, a friend—

All trusting the sky, not foreseeing the end.

From Ahmedabad's warmth to London-bound skies,

They chased after dreams where ambition flies.

The cabin was quiet, a hum in the air,

While engines prepared for the journey out there.

A soft voice announced the seatbelt sign,

The flight crew smiled with practiced line.

Beneath the roar of every wheel,

Was faith in wings and metal and steel.

But fate does not knock, nor does it warn—

It strikes in silence, sudden, torn.

And just as the earth slipped far below,

The fire bloomed where none should glow.

The aircraft, proud, a modern might,

Shuddered and fell from its hopeful height.

Within thirty seconds, all grew red—

A scream, a flash—then silence spread.

She crashed not far from the runway’s tail,

Where buildings shook and hearts turned pale.

A hostel struck, a firestorm flared,

Where lives unknowing, too, were spared.

Doctors and nurses on campus ground,

Were caught as the sky came crashing down.

Inside that hostel, lives did cease—

Cut short by war with no enemies.

Two hundred and forty souls were there,

Now ash and whispers in the air.

Only one emerged, half-burned, in pain,

A man named Ramesh, through smoke and flame.

He clutched at grass, at breath, at sky,

And whispered prayers too torn to cry.

He told of fire, of metal’s scream,

Of how a seat became his dream.

"She broke in half," he softly said,

"Before the fire turned white and red."

He mourned aloud for all he’d seen,

And bore the burden of what had been.

The captain brave, with steady hands,

Had tried to lift what fate commands.

The first officer, young and skilled,

Was silenced in the sky he willed.

The wreckage smoldered, rescue came,

But no one else would speak their name.

Black boxes pulled from soot and wire,

Now hold the answers in quiet fire.

Around the globe, the mourners wept,

In homes where empty chairs were kept.

Condolences from far and near,

Could never dull the sharp, bright fear.

One by one, the names were read,

Of those now counted with the dead.

A child’s toy scorched, a letter charred,

A wedding dress still neatly starred.

The prime minister stood still, head bowed,

In front of grieving, broken crowds.

Compensation cannot restore

The lives that walked through heaven’s door.

But through the horror, courage grew,

In hands that held, in hearts that knew.

Firefighters, nurses, strangers, kin—

All fought to hold the sorrow in.

And though the skies may one day heal,

And metal fly with silent zeal,

We’ll not forget what burned that day—

What price we paid to look away.

For safety worn and warnings missed,

For trust misplaced in clouds and mist.

The 787, once bold and bright,

Now etched in grief, a ghost in flight.

So this is for the lives that rose,

Through fire and pain to final close.

For every soul who dared to dream,

And vanished into smoke and stream.

We hold you still in every light,

In morning’s hush and starry night.

You flew beyond what eyes can see,

And live now in eternity.