A family-of-three, a wellness influencer couple, and an award-winning hotel manager travelling with his wife and two children are among the Brits who were on board the doomed Air India plane.
The Gatwick-bound plane carrying 242 passengers, including 53 British nationals, crashed just moments after take-off from Ahmedabad Airport in the northwestern Indian state of Gujarat.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner careened back down to earth in the densely populated Meghani area of the city just minutes after leaving the runway around 1.40pm local time (8.10am BST).
Terrifying CCTV footage shows the plane appear to lose control before it starts rapidly descending with a high nose angle and landing gear deployed.
It plunges into the ground and explodes in a huge fireball, as a massive plume of black smoke is seen billowing out from crash site.
Aviation experts say that the aircraft may have suddenly lost power ‘at the most critical phase of flight’ after takeoff.
All but one person aboard Air India Flight 171 are feared to have died in the tragedy.
can reveal that among them were Akeel Nanawaba, Hannaa Vorajee and their four-year-old daughter Sarah, Fiongal and Jamie Greenlaw-Meek, Javed Ali Syed, his wife and two children and Raxa Modha, her grandson Rudra and her daughter-in-law Yasha Kamdar.
The sole survivor, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who was seated in 11A, is also British and told the Hindustan Times he had lived in London for 20 years.
Vishwash’s brother Ajaykumar accompanied him on the flight and was sat on the other side of the aisle in seat 11J, but he sadly perished in the fireball explosion.
Akeel Nanawaba, 36, his wife Hannaa Vorajee, 30, and their daughter Sarah, four, were flying home from a five-day family celebration when the Dreamliner crashed.
The successful young couple ran a global recruitment agency with offices in Ahmedabad and Gloucester.
Their shocked business partner Shoyeb Khan Nagori told : ‘I had dinner with them last night. They were a lovely family and Akeel and his wife were extremely successful people.’
Mr Nagori said he was too upset to find the words to describe their daughter Sarah who had spent time with her grandfather during the brief visit.
He said: ‘They were here to celebrate a family festival and to spend some time with Akeel’s father.
‘Akeel was a really good man, I’m in shock, we were all having dinner together the night before.’
Mr Nagori was with hundreds of other relatives of crash victims waiting for updates at the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad.
He founded recruitment company Iceberg Outsourcing Services with Mr Nanbawa, who was the managing director.
Hannaa, a trained midwife, was head of finance with a sister company called Rec2go Ltd, also based in Gloucester.
The second family feared to have been killed included an award-winning hotel manager, his wife and their two children.
Javed Ali Syed, a hotel manager at the Best Western Kensington Olympia Hotel and his wife Mariam were passengers on the fallen Air India Flight 171 this morning.
Their two young children, Amani, four, and Zayn, were also on board the flight.
Mr Syed was an award winning hotelier having previously received a Team Member of the Year award, while working for the Comfort Inn London in Westminster in 2017.
Recently widowed Raxa Modha, 55, her grandson two-year-old Rudra, and her daughter-in-law Yasha Kamdar are all believed to have been onboard the ill-fated airliner.
Mrs Modha had been in India for some time fulfilling the dying wish of her ill husband Kishor who had wanted to live out his last days in his homeland.
Following his recent passing, the mother-of-three was returning with her family to their home in Northamptonshire when disaster struck this morning.
In a twist of fate, Kishan Modha – the toddler’s father and Raxa’s son – had also been in India but was not on the flight as he was due to catch another tomorrow.
Speaking to , a family friend said: ‘It’s incredibly sad, the whole family is already grieving Kishor’s death.
‘Kishan fortunately was getting on another flight, but we don’t know what has happened to the others.’
Neighbours at the family’s detached home in Wellingborough said Mrs Modha is a ‘lovely lady’.
They said she had been in India for an extended period to support her husband who was battling an illness.
The respected businessman, who launched a successful catering business after settling in the UK in 1989, died on April 26. The family were due to hold a service in his memory later this month.
In a memorial for him, the family said he was a ‘cherished husband’ to Raxa and ‘proud grandfather to Rudra, who brought him immense joy’.
The mayor for Wellingborough, Raj Mishra offered his condolences to the family on a post on Facebook adding it was devastating for the local community.
‘I extend my deepest condolences to their families, friends, and all those affected by this heartbreaking event,’ he added.
British celebrity wellness guru Jamie Meek and his husband are also believed to have perished after they posted a haunting video of themselves at the airport waiting to board the Air India flight.
Mr Meek, 45, and husband Fiongal Greenlaw, 39, who live in London, run a wellness and healthy lifestyle company called the Wellness Foundry, and had been in India on holiday.
In a chilling final social media video posted from Ahmedabad airport as they waited to board their doomed flight the couple were dressed in flowery shirts looking happy at the end of their break.
In the clip, Fiongal says: ‘We are at the airport just boarding. Goodbye India. Ten-hour flight back to England. What was your biggest takeaway Jamie?
Jamie replies: ‘I don’t know,’ with his partner laughing and responding: ‘Thanks for your contribution.’
Fiongal than jokes that his biggest takeaway was ‘don’t lose your patience with your partner’ to which Jamie responds with a smile: ‘You snapped at me at the airport for having chai.’
As other passengers mill in the background, Fiongal laughs at the camera and reveals that he is going back to Britain ‘happily, happily calm.’
Mr Meek’s brother, Nick Meek, told : ‘We were expecting him home tonight. He should have landed at 6.30pm and then driven up for about 11pm to get his dog who is staying with our Mum.
‘She is not in a good way. It is all very raw for her at the moment. It’s a lot to take in and we only heard this news a couple of hours ago.
‘Jamie and his husband Fin had been out there for 10 days as a couple to do a wellness retreat.
‘They both worked in holistics and had their own business.’
The caretaker from Birmingham said it was not the first time his brother had been to India but it was the first time they had gone as a couple.
He said that his brother and Fin had married in 2022 and lived in Ramsgate, Kent.
In other videos posted by the couple, they showed the stunning hotel they were staying in while in Ahmedabad having completed a seven-hour car journey.
Fiongal lies on a large bed as he speaks to the camera, showing off a giant swing in their room and describes the hotel as ‘beautiful.
He beams: ‘Feeling very, very happy.’
The couple captured the happy time they had in India in a series of social media posts.
This included getting henna tattoos, shopping for fine fabrics and other gifts and driving through chaotic traffic in a tuk-tuk.
They arrived in Ahmedabad just a day before flying back with Fiongal posting in a video: ‘So, it’s our last night in India and we’ve had a magical experience. Some mind-blowing things have happened.
‘We are going to put all this together and create a vlog. It’s my first ever vlog about the whole trip and we want to share it.’
Jamie revealed what a memorable trip they had both had: ‘We have been on quite a journey and then spending our last night here in this beautiful hotel, it’s really been great way to round off the trip.’
According to its website, The Wellness Foundry was founded by Fiongal in 2018 after he had a ‘spiritual awakening’ following a mysterious illness.
The website adds: ‘Seeking healing beyond conventional methods, Fiongal delved into alternative practices that resonated deeply within his soul.’
The company specialises in tarot and psychic readings, reiki and other alternative spiritual therapies.
British father Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, was filmed walking out from the rubble after some how miraculously surviving the catastrophic crash.
Speaking to local media from the safety of a hospital bed, the passenger who was in seat 11A said: ‘Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly.’
‘When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran.
‘There were pieces of the plane all around me. Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital.’
Astonishing footage showed the passenger walking away from the scene with some visible injuries.
Vishwash, who was returning home to London after visiting family, sustained injuries to his chest, eyes and feet, he told the Hindustan Times.
The regional police chief said ‘some locals would have also died’, given that the plane smashed down into offices and accommodation for doctors close to a hospital.
So far, rescue teams supported by the military have recovered 204 bodies, with casualties from the plane and the area surrounding the crash.
The passengers included 159 Indian nationals, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and a Canadian. Eleven of those on board were children, including two newborns.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the crash was ‘absolutely devastating’ and that the investigation will ‘take some time’.
Aviation experts say that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner may have suddenly lost power ‘at the most critical phase of flight’ after takeoff.
The possible causes are believed to include a rapid change in wind or a bird strike leading to a double engine stall.
Officials from India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau are now at the scene to carry out an analysis of the wreckage and retrieve the stricken jet’s black box.
Videos shows the aircraft rapidly losing altitude – with its nose up – before it hit a building and erupted in a violent explosion.
At first, the plane appears to be descending in a controlled manner with a high nose angle and landing gear deployed.
It then briefly disappears from view behind trees and buildings before a massive fireball suddenly erupts on the horizon.
A huge trail of smoke can subsequently be seen billowing from the crash site.
Other video clips show a huge cloud of black smoke filling the sky as distressed onlookers gather in the streets of the Indian city as chaos unfolds.
Footage taken from inside a hospital circulating on X shows medical staff rushing up and down corridors with stretchers as they prepare to treat passengers.
Shocking images also showed chunks of the plane’s fuselage and tail protruding from a demolished building.
Firefighters at the scene doused the smouldering piles of debris with their hoses as photos and videos taken by horrified residents in Meghani showed a huge plume of thick black smoke emanating from the crash site.
The flight reportedly reached an altitude of just 625 feet before it began to descend, according to flight tracking service Flightradar 24, which declared the plane’s transponder signal dropped just seconds after it left the runway.
‘We received the last signal from the aircraft at 08:08:51 UTC, just seconds after take off,’ it said.
India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said the plane sent a mayday call moments before the crash.
Air India’s Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran shared a heartfelt statement that read: ‘With profound sorrow I confirm that Air India Flight 171 operating Ahmedabad London Gatwick was involved in a tragic accident yesterday.
‘It is very disappointing that it is a Dreamliner as it is a state-of-the-art Boeing. We cannot rule out security issues. But this is all speculation on my part.’
‘Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of all those affected by this devastating event. At this moment, our primary focus is on supporting all the affected people and their families.
‘We are doing everything in our power to assist the emergency response teams at the site and to provide all necessary support and care to those impacted.’
Gatwick Airport subsequently confirmed the flight that was due to land at 18:25 yesterday had crashed on departure.