Air India Boeing 787 crash: more than 200 victims identified by authorities

According to the Indian Civil Aviation Authority, the long-haul plane was carrying 230 passengers - 169 Indians, 53 British, 7 Portuguese and one Canadian - and 12 crew members.

Indian authorities announced Wednesday, June 18, that they had identified the bodies of more than 200 victims of Air India Flight 171 , which crashed June 12 in Ahmedabad , in northwest India. According to Rakesh Joshi, the medical director of the city's civil hospital, 208 victims had been identified as of Wednesday . The crash of the Boeing 787, just after takeoff for London's Gatwick Airport, left at least 279 dead, according to the latest official death toll, the worst air disaster in the world since 2014.

According to the Indian Civil Aviation Authority, the long-haul flight was carrying 230 passengers—169 Indians, 53 British, 7 Portuguese, and one Canadian—and 12 crew members. Only one passenger, seated near an emergency exit at the front of the aircraft, miraculously survived the crash. According to the latest report, at least 38 people were killed on the ground.

Civil aviation investigators in charge of the investigation have recovered the plane's two black boxes, which record cockpit conversations and the flight's technical parameters. According to preliminary findings, the pilot made an emergency call just after takeoff. Video footage released after the crash then shows the plane unable to gain altitude and then crashing heavily to the ground in an orange fireball.