Ahmedabad plane crash: Air India pilot, in his last mayday call to ATC, said that he is "unable to lift" the plane. Moments later, the flight crashed.Ahmedabad plane crash: Air India pilot Sumeet Sabharwal and his co-pilot Clive Kundar.

Ahemdabad plane crash: Air India pilot Sumeet Sabharwal and co-pilot Clive Kundar issued a “mayday” call to Air Traffic Control (ATC) after the aircraft began an abrupt descent at a speed of -475 feet per minute shortly after reaching an altitude of 625 feet. However, all the calls made by ATC went unanswered.

In his message to ATC, Sabharwal, who had 8,200 hours of flying experience, said that the aeroplane had “no thrust” and that he was “unable to lift” it.

“Mayday… no thrust, losing power, unable to lift,” read Sabharwal’s last mayday message to ATC. A few seconds after this, the Air India plane crashed.

What is a Mayday call?

A Mayday call is the highest-level radio distress signal used in aviation and maritime communication to indicate a life-threatening emergency. It signals that immediate assistance is required.

The term “Mayday” comes from the French phrase m’aider, meaning “help me”. It was introduced in the early 1920s by Frederick Stanley Mockford, a radio officer at Croydon Airport in London, to ensure clear communication during emergencies. The word later became a standard part of international radio communication for pilots and mariners and was officially adopted in 1927, alongside the Morse code signal “SOS”.

According to the CCTV footage, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner took off from Runway 23 but soon began to descend unexpectedly. The video shows the aircraft veering over a residential area before going out of scene. Moments later, a massive explosion was heard and thick plumes of black smoke rising from the crash site was seen.

The aircraft lost contact just seconds into its 4,200-mile, ten-hour journey to London’s Gatwick Airport, flight tracking data from Flightradar indicated. 241 of the 242 people aboard Flight 171 have been declared them. Among the was former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.

One passenger, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British national of Indian origin, survived the crash. He described the scene as “unimaginable”, saying he saw bodies scattered around him.