The captain of the Air India crash reportedly issued this haunting warning right before tragedy struck. The warning issued in the final moments of the crash was a cry for help.
Here’s what the pilot of the aircraft said in the final mayday call before it erupted into flames.
An Air India aircraft was flying from Ahmedabad to London on 12 June. The plane consisted of 169 Indian nationals and 53 Britons. 7 Portuguese nationals and one Canadian citizen were also reportedly travelling on the plane. 232 passengers in total and 10 crew members were present on the plane when it crashed.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed soon after its takeoff. The aircraft reportedly travelled a distance of 1.5km before crashing. The crash killed 241 people travelling on the plane, with a lone survivor emerging from the crash. The number of people on the ground remains undisclosed.
Captain Sumeet Sabharwal was flying the aircraft along with his co-pilot Clive Kunder. Both pilots had a combined flying time of 9,000 hours. Sabharwal had experience flying aircraft for 22 years, BBC reports.
A new report reveals that the pilot sent out a message on his radio noting that the plane was “losing power.” The call came merely 11 seconds after the plane had taken off. “Mayday […] no thrust, losing power, unable to lift,” Captain Sabharwal said moments before the tragic crash.
The crash is being attributed by aviation experts to a dual-engine failure, a scenario almost unheard of in flight. Studies show the odds of both engines failing at once are a staggering one in a billion flying hours, marking this as an exceptionally rare occurrence. pic.twitter.com/3MfcFws50g
— idrw (@idrwalerts) June 12, 2025
Both Sabharwal and Clive tried their best to prevent the crash from happening in the 17 seconds that followed. Unfortunately, moments after the radio call, the plane plane exploded while descending after struggling to gain altitude.
The aftereffects of the crash were just as devastating as the crash itself. The plane plummeted and crashed directly into the residential area that it was flying over. The crash left several housing blocks damaged after the explosion.
The survivor of the crash revealed that he had heard a loud noise moments before the crash. The exact reason behind the crash is yet to be determined. The lone survivor of the crash is a British national named Vishwash Kumar Ramesh.
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, seated in 11A, was reportedly the only survivor in the Air India Boeing 787 crash
via India Today pic.twitter.com/GLEnXQIjwy
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) June 12, 2025
Flight radar revealed that the aircraft lost contact a few seconds into taking off. The aircraft only gained an altitude of 625ft before it started unexpectedly descending. A video clip of the crash shows exactly how the tragedy unfolded.
In the footage, the plane looks like it is struggling to gain a higher altitude as it flies dangerously close to trees and buildings. Moments later, an explosion sounds and the plane erupts into flames.
