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Air India Plane Crashes in Western India With 242 People on Board; New Video Shows Moments Plane Crashes in India; Protests Spread Across U.S. as Marines Prepare to Deploy in L.A. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 12, 2025 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[07:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning, horrific scenes out of India, an Air India flight with 242 passengers and crew members on board has crashed and on me in Western India just moments after taking off. We are getting just unbelievable video here of the crash site there showing plumes of smoke burning buildings, charred debris littering the ground.

Indian officials say the flight gave a mayday call soon after takeoff. It was headed for London's Gatwick Airport. Aviation tracker Flight Radar 24 indicating the Boeing aircraft lost signal at 625 feet.

Now, this stunning image from social media shows what appears to be the tail of the plane sticking out from the top of a building. You see it just there.

Joining us now, CNN's Selma Abdelaziz with the latest on this. These pictures are stunningly awful. What can you tell us?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Deeply distressing images that you're looking at there, especially when you consider that there are 242 souls that were on board that flight. They come from four different countries, India, Canada, Britain and Portugal. This is a global tragedy.

And when you look at where this accident took place, you have to ask your question, the question, are there victims beyond the passengers on board that plane? Because you are looking at a fiery scene that is in the middle of a residential area, crowds of people who have gathered. You can see buildings that have been scorched by the flames You saw, of course, that building where a portion of the plane appears to have been crashed, and then the sense that this plane dropped from the sky.

You mentioned the altitude. It was only a minute after takeoff, at just about 625 feet that the plane began to drop at a rate of 475 feet per minute. That is how quickly this tragedy happened. And even with that quick pace, the pilots were able to make a mayday call. And that mayday call may reveal what happened, but right now all the focus is of course on those 242 souls.

Air India says it has set up an emergency support center to meet families, to bring families in, and essentially provide them with a help desk that's going to give them minute by minute updates. We've heard from India's prime minister who's described this as a tragedy, who says he's deeply saddened to see this news. We've heard from India's civil aviation minister who said he's providing support, providing whatever those crews that you've seen trying to extinguish those flames need.

There is, of course, a connection here to London. This flight was supposed to land around 6:25 local time here in London, Gatwick Airport. I want to note that there's a huge Indian diaspora in England, which I am sure right now is watching this news with fear and bated breath.

But right now, of course, more questions than answers. And when you're looking at those scenes, when you're looking at the scorched earth, when you're looking at the burn buildings, when you're looking at those massive flames and the bits of plane embedded in a building, it is very difficult to imagine how any of those 242 souls could have survived. But that is exactly what their families are doing right now.

They are waiting to hear more. They are waiting to find out their fate. We've even seen images of luggage being pulled out. Just a reminder of the human toll in this tragedy.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Salma, stick with us. Let's also bring in now CNN Transportation Analyst Mary Schiavo, as we continue watching some of this video that has been coming in.

Mary, you've been up since just moments after and talking about this since moments after we started learning of this crash. What is sticking out to you right now about what we know and what we don't?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Well, the clues that we have already do give, you know, some indication. The fact that was just mentioned that the pilots were able to get off a mayday call, they realized that they were having difficulty with something and the altitude is extremely low, I mean, on a takeoff. And there is also a video circulating that shows the aircraft with nose up, which is how it's supposed to be for takeoff, but still sinking.

[07:05:01]

So, there are a lot of clues already, but because this is a Boeing 787, the most, you know, advanced, most modern plane that Boeing makes, that flight data recorder will record literally thousands of points of data. You know, everything from the engine performance the flap settings, the wing settings, every control surface in that aircraft, what everything was said in the cockpit, they will have an unbelievable you know, cornucopia of data that the plane will give the investigators straight from the plane. Same with the cockpit voice recording that will indicate what the mayday call was about if they didn't get the full description off to air traffic control.

So, the plane itself is going to give a lot of clues. The low altitude is concerning. I mean, they should have been able to, you know, be certainly climb faster than that. And, of course, they'll look at the runway in the airport itself. Did they use the full runway? Did they have enough runway length? Was there some problem with the takeoff? What were the settings?

I mean, there's a lot of clues already, but like I say, this will be a very important investigation for India, which is the fastest growing air market, demand for air travel in the world and for Boeing, which has an awful lot at stake here.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The Boeing 787 Dreamliner appears to be the type of aircraft at play here.

Mary, just after takeoff, and I know there's so much we don't know at this point, but what are the range of things that can go wrong just after takeoff that aren't apparent before takeoff, when a plane goes through a thorough check?

SCHIAVO: Well, I mean, you know, some things as, you know, huge and catastrophic as, you know, losing an engine. We saw the crash in Korea you know, just after the New Year of a bird strike, there was no indication of that here. I mean, there are many things that can do.

But you know, one of the things that -- speed in the right settings when you lift off. When you lift off that runway, you have to have that so you can climb and so you can perform. So, whatever has gone wrong could have literally happened on the runway, on the settings before you ever did the takeoff roll.

And then, of course, you can have, control surface failures. You can have, you know, computer failures, you can have engine failures. There are a lot of things that can happen, but you know, often on a takeoff, you know, the problem has occurred, you know, before you ever started the role, with the settings, with a problem that isn't readily apparent.

But because of the plane and because of the newness of the flight data recorder, these investigators will have -- as never before, they will have more data provided it survived the impact, then they'll have more data than in any other aircraft from the plane.

BERMAN: That is interesting because it happened so quickly. They're likely to be able to find it quickly and get more data from it quickly.

Mary Schiavo, Salma Abdelaziz, stay with us, both of you.

Much more on the breaking news coverage ahead, Air India Flight 171, 242 souls on board crash just after takeoff, stunning and tragic pictures coming from the scene.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:10:00]

BERMAN: All right. The breaking news this morning out of Western India, CNN has confirmed that an Air India flight with 242 passengers and crew on board crashed just moments after takeoff. It was headed for London's Gatwick Airport, on board passengers predominantly from India, but also the U.K., Canada, and Portugal.

Let's get right back to CNN's Salma Abdelaziz, who is monitoring this. And you're getting new information, Salma, about the crash site itself. What's happening?

ABDELAZIZ: Yes. And just remember when we're looking at these images, of course, we are talking about 242 souls on board, 242 passengers and crew whose fate right now is still unknown in their families. Looking at those images of the charred, aftermath of this crash of burnt earth, of damaged buildings, of emergency crews, trying to put out these flames in this fire.

As you mentioned, this is a crash that took place just upon departure, less than a minute after takeoff, according to flight tracking radar. And we are talking about a global event here, a global accident. You mentioned four different nationalities, more than 160 of those on board were Indian nationals. You have more than 50 British nationals as well as individuals from Portugal. So, you're looking at a very global response in a very multi-layered effort, again, to respond to this tragedy.

An emergency center has been activated by the Tata Group. That's the parent company of Air India, of course, the airliner, behind this crash, So, an emergency center set up to provide essentially a help desk to the families seeking answer.

We've also heard from India's civil aviation minister who says he's providing all the support that he can to those emergency crews that you see on the ground, putting out fires, to the ambulance workers, to the teams trying to recover and salvage anything that they can find on the ground.

We've also heard from India's prime minister who said he was extremely saddened to hear of this tragedy and that his heart goes out to those families.

[07:15:01]

I want to note that this crash took place in the Indian state of Gujarat, which is the prime minister's home state. So, this will hold a personal importance to him. We have also heard from the U.K.'s foreign minister, David Lammy, who says he has open channels of communication with his counterparts in India to find out more about those 53 British nationals whose fate right now remains unknown.

I also want you to take a look at these images because it gives you a sense that there may potentially be more victims here than those that were just on the plane. Just look at that epicenter, again, because this plane crashed at such a low altitude, so quickly after departure. You can expect that it was full of fuel and essentially that caused huge fires, potentially huge explosions on the ground in the middle of the day, in a busy city right near an airport. I mean, you can see the crowds that are rushing to that scene, making it ever more difficult you could imagine for those emergency workers on the ground to do their work. So, a nation, India, mobilized, multiple countries now opening their channels of communication to that government, families seeking answers and going to that help center that's been provided by Air India for those answers. And right now, we are just waiting, as those families are, to find out what has happened to those 242 souls on board.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you to our Salma Abdelaziz.

We have a video, new video just in, where you're going to see the plane sort of going down. There it is there, one minute, about one minute after takeoff. You see it sort of -- it looks like it's almost leveling off and then slowly going down, and there is that awful explosion. Salma Abdelaziz just mentioning it would have been full of fuel at that point in time as it left to travel to London, 242 people and crew members aboard there, awful pictures there.

Mary Schiavo, you have seen this video now. You've been looking at it, it is a horrific, horrific view from someone that appears to be near a rooftop. They probably heard how loud this was and wondered what was going on. Can you give us some sense of what you see right there just from your expert eyes as to sort of how the plane reacted and what you see there, if you can indicate anything that would have been a major problem until we saw the result that it crashed?

SCHIAVO: Well, a couple things, and, again, I mean, we don't know what angle we're seeing this from and it's difficult to get fine detail. But at first, it does not appear that the nose is angled up, that it has the correct angle pointed up as it should be on takeoff. It's almost kind of leveled off. And as you mentioned, I think you saw that correctly. And then you do see the nose up a little more. But in relation to where we're seeing the video, now we don't know the angle that we're seeing the video from, but it does not appear to be climbing at all. So, the nose is up and it's still sinking.

And those are -- something's wrong when that happens on takeoff because you have to set the correct angle of attack, meaning how high towards the horizon do you put the nose? And this nose was not at that location, and even at the end with the nose up, it's sinking.

So, you know, it could be any number of things. You know, it doesn't -- you know, there was no indication that the pilot in the mayday call said that he or she had lost an engine, but it doesn't appear that it had, you know, the power or the lift.

So, you know, initially it looks mechanical, but there's also an issue of what was their performance on the runway. What was their runway speed? Did they approach the end of the runway and have to lift off too soon? I mean, there's so many unknowns, but that video that we just saw clearly indicates that something's very wrong on the takeoff and it's not climbing.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Mary, thank you. Stick with us. Salma Abdelaziz is bringing together more information, more detail, clearly so much more to learn as this is all unfolding before our eyes. We're going to have much more on the plane crash in India ahead, including, we're just getting a new detail in just now. As we know, that plane crashed in a residential area is how it's been described, and we are now hearing a senior -- according to a senior police officer told reporters that the plane had hit a doctor's hostel. That's according to Reuters.

More information coming in about what happened, about what is unfolding before us, and now the potential of further injuries at the very least now that we know what it hit on as it was crashing. Much more of that ahead.

[07:20:00]

We're also monitoring, breaking news continues here at here in the United States as well, a wave of protests breaking out overnight in cities from coast to coast, as a federal judge is set to hear arguments in California today over the president's use of the military in Los Angeles, all over his ramped up immigration raids.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Breaking this morning, we are watching this. What began in Los Angeles has now spread across the country, protests against ICE immigration raids, protests against President Trump activating the military on American soil propping up from coast-to-coast now.

In Seattle, police arrested at least eight people after they say protesters through fireworks and rocks at officers and set a dumpster on fire. Also, in Washington State, the mayor of Spokane, Washington, declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew after protesters blocked roads. Police say they also used non-toxic smoke to disperse the crowds. More than 30 people were arrested there.

And back in Los Angeles, part of the downtown area does remain under curfew for a second night now this morning. While outside the curfew zone, police could be seen pulling people from the crowds of protesters to detain them.

U.S. Military says the 700 Marines mobilized to the Los Angeles area have completed their training and will be deployed in the next 48 hours.

[07:25:01]

President Trump has also, as we know, mobilized now 4,000 National Guard troops to the region.

Also happening today, and this is a big focus now, as a federal judge will hear arguments over California's lawsuit challenging the president's deployment of the military in Los Angeles. And CNN has new reporting out just this morning that the administration's plans to use the military to bolster immigration enforcement efforts, this is months in the making and has been discussed and debated behind the scenes for months now.

Joining me is CNN Legal Analyst Carrie Cordero for much more on this. Let's start with today and this hearing that's been really -- everyone's been kind of waiting for this hearing before this federal judge. What do you expect could come from court today, Carrie? And what would you be watching for?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So, I think the big question, Kate, is whether or not the judge is going to order that the administration stand down on the deployment of National Guard that have been federalized and the Marines that have been sent to the region of, and that would be a pretty extraordinary thing if they did, if the judge went along with California's argument.

Generally, presidents have pretty strong authorities that have been recognized the courts to make judgements about when National Guard or the military is used. And so one potential avenue for California is that they persuade the court that this specific statute that the president used to federalize the troops required more significant coordination with the governor, in this case, the administration went through the adjuvant general, not through the governor, and according to the governor, it's been over his objection. So, that could be one potential area that the court would explore today.

BOLDUAN: And the fact that the -- and maybe this is what I'm wondering if this is part of what will be brought up and what the judge needs to consider, the fact that the administration, the president, and the state of California described the situation in two totally different ways. President Trump describing the protest in L.A. in dire terms, talking about riots, an invasion, saying if he hadn't sent in the troops, the city would be burning to the ground. The mayor and the governor are making very clear that they say that is nowhere close to the truth of what is actually happening on the ground. How important is the actual truth of the reality there to what this judge decides?

CORDERO: Yes. So, I think that is -- it is an important question, whether or not the court is going to really dig into the facts that have been asserted in both California and in the administration's pleadings before it. So, for example, the Department of Justice brief that they filed in this case, it has really -- a few pages that are really detailed in terms of the violence that has been committed against law enforcement personnel, federal law enforcement personnel in L.A. specifically, and so then that would lend towards their argument that they needed additional reinforcements to provide a protection of the federal officers. So, the factual scenario and how deep the judge digs into it is going to be important.

The other question, I think, on the table for the judge is whether or not the judge gets into the issue of what, really, I think is the central premise of the administration's arguments here, which is across the board in terms of their immigration enforcement, which is that there is a, quote/unquote, invasion. And that theory, that is the administration's theory, really underlies the wide range of immigration enforcement activities that they're doing all around the country and then the legal arguments that they're making to federalize National Guard and deploy Marines to assist in this effort.

BOLDUAN: Carrie, it's great to see you. Thank you so much for jumping on this morning. We really appreciate it.

We're going to continue to watch the curfew place in that one small part of Los Angeles, and watching how this unfolds again for another day, as we're seeing more protests now from coast to coast.

We're also continuing to track the breaking news that is unfolding right now, an Air India flight crashing in Western India less than a minute after takeoff, 242 people onboard. The video coming in of the wreckage and the aftermath is truly, truly troubling to see, and obviously a lot that is still not known as they have emergency crews on the ground, as we speak.

We're also tracking new reporting in the Middle East, a new evacuation plan is in place for some U.S. embassies in the Middle East.

[07:30:04]

What the State Department says now about the need to move.