Caught On Audio: Air India Captain’s Desperate Call Moments Before Crash

Seconds before one of India's deadliest aviation disasters, a voice crackled over the airwaves - a desperate call for help from the cockpit of Air India Flight AI-171. The pilot's haunting last message to Ahmedabad Air Traffic Control (ATC) now paints a chilling picture of the final moments before the aircraft crashed, killing at least 274 people.

"MAYDAY... MAYDAY... MAYDAY... NO POWER... NO THRUST... GOING DOWN..." - these were the last words of Captain Sumit Sabharwal, the senior pilot commanding the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner, moments before the aircraft plunged into a densely populated area of Meghaninagar, smashing into a hostel building attached to a medical college.

The crash occurred seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad airport around 1:30 pm on Thursday, with 242 people onboard, including 230 passengers, 10 cabin crew, and 2 pilots. Tragically, only one passenger, a British national of Indian origin, survived the catastrophe. Among the victims was former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who was on board the flight.

As the aircraft lost altitude rapidly, eyewitnesses saw it veer off course and nosedive into the residential quarters of the medical campus. The crash led to an inferno, with thick black smoke billowing into the sky and triggering panic and chaos in the neighborhood. Several medical students and local residents were also killed in the impact, compounding the tragedy.

A massive rescue and recovery operation was launched immediately after the crash. By Thursday night, investigators had successfully recovered one of the aircraft's black boxes, offering a potential key to understanding what went wrong. Search teams are continuing efforts to retrieve the second black box and the Digital Video Recorder (DVR), both critical to the ongoing probe.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has announced a full-scale investigation, forming a high-level multi-disciplinary panel tasked with uncovering the cause of the crash. The panel will scrutinize all technical and procedural aspects, including compliance with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and aviation safety regulations.

Officials from several national agencies, including the National Investigation Agency (NIA), have visited the crash site to assist in the probe.

As the nation mourns this monumental loss, questions continue to swirl about how a modern jetliner could fail so catastrophically within moments of takeoff - and whether this haunting five-second distress call will hold the answer.