For more than a decade, pilots and judges have warned that India’s breakneck urban development was pushing population centers closer to the nation’s runways.

On the afternoon of June 12, 2025, an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner en route to the London Gatwick Airport crashed just moments after taking off from Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Of the 242 people on board, only one survived. At least 39 others were killed on the ground when the aircraft plunged into a hostel.

The AI-171 crash has similarities to a similar incident in 2020 in the UK. Investigators who probed the earlier case in UK are now in Ahmedabad and initial reports suggest the crash wasn't due to any error in the cockpit.