At least 241 people were killed when flight AI171 crashed into a residential area just moments after leaving Ahmedabad airport in western India bound for London Gatwick.
The dead included those on the ground and 229 passengers and 12 crew onboard the aircraft, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. It is the first crash involving the Dreamliner, one of the most modern planes in the sky.
According to Air India there were 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese nationals and one Canadian on the flight.
One British passenger survived the crash and is being treated in hospital. Media reports later named him as Vishwashkumar Ramesh, 40, and a father of one who was sitting in seat 11A, right next to an emergency exit.
“Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly,” Mr Ramesh is reported as saying by news outlet The New Indian Express.
“There were dead bodies around me. I got scared. I got up and ran.
“There were pieces of the plane everywhere.”
Dramatic footage shown on social media shows the moment the plane came down shortly after take-off, exploding into a ball of flames after hitting a hotel for doctors.
According to a report in The Sun, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, who had more than 8,000 hours of flying experience, warned the plane was “losing power” just 11 seconds after lift-off – but could do nothing to prevent the crash.
The captain called out down his radio: “Mayday […] no thrust, losing power, unable to lift”.
The two pilots then wrestled for 17 seconds with the controls as the jet sank through the air before crashing into the buildings below.
Authorities have said at least 50 medical students who were in the building are being treated in hospital.
Experts have told the BBC that a flap issue or engine failure are among the possible causes of the crash, which could become the worst airline disaster in a decade.
