Deadly Plane Crash
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It's Thursday, June 12th, and here's what's happening right now on CNN This Morning. Breaking news out of India. A passenger jet bound for London has crashed. New details just coming in. Plus...

Tensions flare as protests spread across the U.S., a curfew in place for two cities with the national card deployed to another state. Then, anxious moments in the Middle East, the U.S. pulling personnel out of the region as President Trump urges Israel to take it down a notch.

It's 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here is a live look at New York City. Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me and bring you this breaking news out of India this morning, where authorities there say a passenger plane has crashed at an airport in Ahmadabad. This video shows heavy black smoke near the airport.

Air India has confirmed that it was one of its planes that was traveling to London. We're going to bring in now CNN's Salma Abdelaziz. Salma, what details have you learned so far? We just received word that there were 242 passengers and crew on board that flight. 242 souls. And when, of course, you look at these images, Adi, that we are looking at of this thick black

black smoke pluming from the site of the accident of emergency crews rushing to that scene. It is very difficult to imagine if any of those 242 souls have survived this crash, which happened less than a minute

after takeoff at only 625 feet of those 242 people on board. 169 are Indian nationals, 53 are British nationals, one Canadian national and seven are Portuguese nationals. That's a

according to an Air India statement. The airliner has also set up an emergency services center to provide support to the families and to provide support to those emergency crews on the ground. We've also heard from India's civil aviation minister, who says he is doing his utmost to provide whatever is needed for those rescue workers on the ground. But you look at those scenes again, the charred buildings, the

crowds, the residents, you wonder how big the epicenter of damage is when it comes to this plane crash. This plane was also supposed to land here in London at about 6.30 local time at Gatwick. We've heard confirmation from Gatwick that that flight was expected, which means that this

that families on this side could also be asking questions this morning as they try to find out again what happened to the 242 people on board that flight. For now, the focus is of course on the scene of the crash where emergency rescue workers are working right now through the rubble, through the charred buildings,

through the fires that you're seeing on your screen there. And the other focus, of course, the other epicenter, of course, is going to be this emergency services center that's been set up by Air India. You can expect that family members will be rushing there with questions, with fear, with worry and concern, Adi.

Salma Abdelaziz in London, thank you for reporting. We're going to continue to follow this throughout the day, this crash with 242 people aboard. Coming up on CNN this morning, the U.S. is pulling all non-essential personnel from the Middle East as President Trump seems less confident about securing a deal with Iran.

Plus, RFK Jr. appointing eight new members to the CDC's Vaccine Advisory Committee. Who are they? Where do they stand on the science? And President Trump has a night at the theater met with cheers and boos at the Kennedy Center. Yeah, the actors were told that they could sit out tonight if they didn't want to perform for Trump. As soon as she heard, Melania was like, okay, bye.

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We're monitoring breaking news out of Western India. An Air India jet has crashed moments after takeoff in the city of Ahmedabad, north of Mumbai. The passenger plane was bound for London.

So, so far we've learned 242 passengers and crew were on board. We are going to be following this story throughout the morning as we learn more about who was on board and what was happening with that flight.

An emergency curfew now in effect in downtown Los Angeles for a second straight night as protests against ICE raids continue along with troop deployments for a sixth straight day as demonstrations ramp up across the country. So here's the latest. Nearly 400 people have been arrested in LA since protests began on Friday.

According to the White House, that includes 330 undocumented migrants. As a growing number of cities struggle to contain the unrest. Police in Seattle detained several protesters overnight after some in the crowd started throwing fireworks, setting fires and throwing bottles and rocks at police. The mayor of Spokane, Washington has imposed a curfew and declared a state of emergency after a day of demonstrations in her city

Protesters are also filling the streets of downtown Chicago and New York City, where more than 80 people have been arrested. The resistance appears to be building. All of the cities highlighted in the map are now dealing with protests. As the Trump administration accelerates its raids, more than 70 undocumented workers were detained on Wednesday when ICE agents stormed a meat plant in Omaha, Nebraska.

There's been some unnecessary fear created by the incidents yesterday. There was one raid and then there were several attempts by federal agents to go into businesses without warrants and they were denied entry. And so that's created fear. 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines have been deployed to LA and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggests National Guard orders could extend to more states.

Part of it is getting ahead of a problem so that if in other places, if there are other riots in places where law enforcement officers are threatened, we would have the capability to surge National Guard there if necessary.

So there's going to be a federal hearing in San Francisco this afternoon on Governor Gavin Newsom's effort to block the deployment of troops to L.A. Joining me now in the group chat this morning, Kevin Fry, Washington correspondent for Spectrum News, New York One, Zachary Wolf, CNN senior politics writer and author of CNN's What Matters newsletter, and Karen Attia, Washington Post correspondent.

columnist. First of all, welcome the new folks to the chat. It's a busy week for you guys to jump in. And I want to start with you, Karen, just for a minute, because you actually have done kind of, I think, a resistance school this summer for people who are interested in joining protest movements. The reason why I'm coming to you first is because there is such thing as a tipping point. There are sparks, which is what you see in L.A.,

people physically fighting back. It's not planned. It's not organized. But then organized protests can spring out of that as a result. What are you watching for?

I think in particular when it comes to L.A., and this is something that kind of went under the radar for those of us who weren't from California, the arrest of David Huerta, the SEIU leader, a very well-respected labor leader, not just the arrest, but being injured by ICE by, you know, he was wanting to oversee, you know, what was happening and just ask questions, right? So I think as we're seeing all of these,

these protests, it's particularly the arrests of politicians, right? We saw this Ras Baraka, right? And to me, watching that over the weekend, that was, I was like, oh, wow, this is a tipping point. A tipping point for the viewer, right? For people at home who are like, how is this playing out? But then also,

the mobilization of labor unions sounding the alarm. California Democratic, excuse me, California politicians over the weekend saying, this is not okay. Of course, it's not okay to, you know, brutalize people regardless of your stature, but

I think from looking at this and looking at, well, first of all, you know, just to be very fair to, despite the picture that the president wants to paint of what's happening in L.A., I'm also watching friends, people on social media in L.A. who are like, this is not the

disastrous, crazy war zone that is being painted. Let me jump in here because the mayor, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was speaking, I think it was on Wednesday, where she was outright saying that saying there's widespread disorder is a lie. Let's see if we have that.

The curfew that we put in place yesterday is about six square miles of a city that is 500 square miles. So the portrayal is that all of our cities are in chaos, rioting is happening everywhere, and it is a lie.

Kevin, at the same time, I feel like this is a great big do-over for the law and order crowd who felt like things got out of hand in certain cities in Minneapolis or Seattle after, or Portland rather, after the Black Lives Matter protests. So they see this as a moment to like, yes, they're going to Tom Cotton double down, you know, saying send in troops again. Like they're not deterred by this split screen.

No, I mean, let's kind of two threads to pull out here. One, when it comes to what the mayor was just touching, I mean, this is the power and the evil of television in some sense, is that you only see what's through this little square in front of you. And so you can kind of get this microcosm of a moment in a city that might not be reflective of the larger picture. Or your social media might be telling you something completely different. I don't know about you. Do you feel like you've seen a lot of videos people have taken surreptitiously?

of ICE doing its work. I don't know if you've seen that on your timeline or, you know, people saying, oh, look, this happened in my neighborhood. Like they don't need the TV, I think, to follow all of this. But it's having an effect when people are looking at the polling Quinnipiac saying that asking how the president is handling immigration and deportations, those disapproval numbers have nudged up.

They have, but I think that there's still a split and we shouldn't underestimate the support he has the president among his base. And I think I saw some new polling in the Washington Post today that showed independents sort of veer towards being against it, but it's not as cut and dried as you might think. I mean, the country is very divided on this. What I find kind of interesting to Karen's point is that the administration likes to say that these are professional protesters,

But the protest in Nebraska, was it a meat packing plant? These are working people. In Los Angeles, we're talking about garment factories. So it's like, this is the kind of thing that will seep out and affect people in their daily lives at some point as well. - And also one of the things I get nervous about is when you bring in the military, when you militarize the zone, so to speak, injuries can happen, dangerous things can happen, and will that have an effect on

as you said, how people see this. - The backlash. - Exactly. - The Trump administration's too online. - All right, you guys stay with me. We're gonna talk about a lot of things today. We're also following a lot of breaking news. If you wanna kind of keep abreast of what's going on this week on this issue and others, please check out Zachary's writing in

the What Matters newsletter. It publishes Monday through Friday. You can sign up now on CNN.com. I'm actually a subscriber. I'm not saying that because I work here. All right, so we're going to continue to follow this breaking news out of India. Basically, what's happened is a passenger jet has crashed at an airport in the western part of the country. We're learning that it was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. That's according to FlightRadar.

Right now, we don't have reports of casualties, but upwards of 242 people were reportedly on board. We'll be right back.

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I want to bring you more on that breaking news out of India. A passenger jet carrying 242 passengers and crew has crashed at an airport in Ahmadabad. Joining me now to discuss CNN transportation analyst Mary Scavo. Mary, first, let's just talk about it taking off and apparently crashing so soon after takeoff. What are you thinking as you hear the early reports about what's happening? I'm in the city.

Well, as I hear the early reports, this is 787 Boeing Dreamliner. This will be the first major crash, the first crash of a Dreamliner. And as we can see, there's also some footage floating around out there on the internet. If it's correct, it does appear that the plane was just after takeoff. I don't see any flaps deployed. Now, flaps are like little winglets on the back of the

plane, little parts of the wing that help give it lift. And you use those at various parts in the flight. I don't see those deployed. And also the important clue is that the pilot was able, according to unconfirmed reports, able to get off a mayday call. That means that the pilots knew they had a problem, some kind of a problem on the plane. We don't know yet if it's a mechanical or some other issue, but

By being able to communicate that Mayday call, we do know that the pilots were having trouble with the plane. So already there are many, many clues. But the explosion that was recorded on some tape that's floating on the Internet, unconfirmed, does not look like it would have been a survivable crash, sadly and tragically. And we should say we're...

We're showing images that we've been able to verify a caution people out there about what you're seeing on the internet But the images we're seeing here are incredibly striking. We're having people hand pull away luggage And materials from that crash scene you mentioned the dreamliner What's significant about that was significant about this style of plane that draws your attention to it being the first to be in a crash and

Well, what's significant is it was, you know, when it came on the market, now admittedly several years ago, you know, the newest, it had a lot of features on that aircraft that made the aircraft, how should we put this? It made the aircraft less susceptible supposedly to pilot errors. It had a lot of additional flight assists and other equipment. And of course, people will be thinking immediately about

the Boeing crashes of the two 737 Max 8 aircraft, not the same as this one. But in the course of that investigation, it was revealed that there was a lot of equipment on that plane that took the control away from the pilots

And that turned out to be deadly. It was called the MCAS, which drove the plane into the ground against the commands of the pilots. Now, from the video that's out there and what happened is that the aircraft in those crashes pushed the nose down. The pilot pulled it up. The plane kept pushing the nose down. I don't see that in the one very short video clip.

But some of the equipment is the same, and this is not the same aircraft as those two prior Boeing crashes. But that would put tremendous pressure on Boeing, on the investigators, on the regulators to see if there is any correlation between those crashes and the computer equipment and computer programming on this plane, which is, like I said, the newest, most modern plane of the Boeing fleet.

The last time we had you on CNN this morning, I believe you were talking about the crash in the Potomac and you were talking about the difficulties created and having a recovery or rescue scene over water. With this, it looks like it's right in a city. People are pulling some of this debris away from buildings, charred buildings. How do you even begin to investigate something that is in a scene like this?

Well, you know, then they've, you know, sadly, investigators had to have had to do this hundreds or literally thousands of times. And so what will happen next is literally an international team of investigators. It will be the air. It will be the India's team. They will be the lead investigators because it happened in India.

The United States National Transportation Safety Board will attend because it's a Boeing aircraft. So they will be invited into the investigation because the aircraft was made in the United States. And England will be involved, the UK, because there will be many passengers on there and it was bound for England. So it will be an international group of investigators. But the first thing they do is, of course, you know,

you know, try to remove all any survivors and of course all remains. And then they're gonna be looking for those black boxes. This aircraft has the newest, most modern version in the world of black boxes. It will record, you know, hundreds of different settings on the plane. If it was having a mechanical, chances are it will be recorded on the flight data recorder. If the flaps were not set correctly, for example, it will be on the flight data recorder.

and the cockpit voice recorder will record whether or not there was a Mayday call and what they were able to say they perceived going wrong with the aircraft when they got the Mayday call out, if that's correct. So the next order of business will be to get those black boxes

Because the plane was American-made, they will likely be downloaded. The data will be downloaded in the United States outside of Washington, D.C. There's a lab, but it doesn't have to be. India can do it, too. Britain can do it. So those would be the first steps in the investigation, in addition to, of course, identifying and getting the passenger list, the manifest of who all was on board, notifying everybody, and setting up what's called a care team.

The airlines are required to have a care team to care for the families, to care for the persons who may have survived, to provide medical care, counseling care, to provide immediate cash support to those families of anyone on the plane to get there, to hear the briefings on the investigation, etc. So there are a lot of moving parts right now, most of which are all covered by regulations and by international laws and treaties.

because it was an international flight. So it will be rather according to the book, as they say. And those very same laws, regulations and treaties will require an initial preliminary report within 30 days. So sadly, this will not be the first go around on these kinds of investigations. We've seen an awful lot lately.

But it does have to be a horrifying moment for these families. As we said, 242 people reportedly on that flight, people from London, people from India. We were hearing earlier possibly Portuguese nationals. Mary Scavo is a CNN transportation analyst. I want you to stick around this hour as we learn more information. We at CNN, of course, will be monitoring the situation on the ground in western India. This, of course, after this passenger jet crash.

bound for London crashed just moments after takeoff. Right now, we don't have more information or any information really about specific casualties. When we come back, we're going to bring you more reporting. This is CNN Breaking News.

Back now to breaking news. We have been following out of India an Air India passenger jet has crashed in the western part of the country. It happened shortly after takeoff. The jet was only about 625 feet in the air and it had been bound for London. We've learned that 242 people were on board and the British foreign minister has confirmed that 53 British nationals were on board.

Video from the ground shows people searching through the rubble looking for survivors. We do not have any information at this time about confirmed casualties. I'm bringing back NCNN's transportation analyst, Mary Schiavo. Mary, as we mentioned, the UK foreign minister saying he's deeply saddened by this news of this air crash. And we were talking earlier about

the flight, the plane itself, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, and some very interesting history here about why this plane was supposed to be technologically advanced in a lot of ways. Can you talk about some of those kind of safety technologies that were supposed to make a difference?

Right. Well, on any aircraft and particularly on modern aircraft, they have all sorts of things, you know, flight controllers, flight management systems. And now, obviously, aircraft, especially the Dreamliner and others of that age, you know, the newest aircraft.

are really flying computers. So many things are computer controlled, computer monitored, etc. That, you know, often we think that literally the plane, you know, is so advanced it can fly, you know, itself from takeoff to landing. And it literally can, except there are many things that have to be checked and set

And of course, this is my experience from working on prior air disasters. But, you know, for example, the pilots have to review all the proper settings, the weight. They still have to do the old-fashioned weight and balance. How much is on that plane? Where is it located? They still have to make sure that the engines are

are correctly functioning. They still do these checks before every flight and since it only got 625 feet in the air, you know, people will be especially attuned to looking at something called the flap setting. How was the wing configured for the takeoff? They will be looking at engine performance. You know, were both engines giving full power on this aircraft?

aircraft, you know, where they fully powered up. Now, that is something that your cockpit tells you. It tells you the engine, you know, the performances, you know, what it's doing, et cetera. And Mary, I just want to jump in here to say that we actually have heard from Boeing. They've at least put out a statement at this point saying that we are aware of initial reports, that they're working to gather more information. That's all we have heard from them at this time.

The other thing is this air crash, it took place in this western state of Gujarat. It's actually the home of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But this is going to be a big international scene, correct? You have internationals from the UK. India has a growing flight industry. How do these different groups come together in this moment?

well and that's a great point you made india is the fastest growing aviation uh nation aviation consumer in the world i mean there's tremendous demand and growth there and so uh you know a lot of uh there'll be a lot of focus on india you know about the growth and and the regulation and and is this is the growth carefully modulated but

The way this works is pretty much set in stone. India will be the lead investigation agency. Their safety investigators are without a doubt already getting deployed to the scene and starting work. They will invite, India is the one who invites

the other nations involved. They will invite the United States. Boeing will be a party to the investigation. They will invite the United Kingdom and their investigators to come in. They will be a party to the investigation. And anyone else who was involved in the manufacture of the plane, for example, in the training of the pilots, the airline, they will all be involved in parties in the investigation. And there are very set rules about how they behave, what they do with the evidence, how they protect the evidence.

And, you know, fortunately, that framework is there. But India will be the lead because it is the, you know, the nation of where the disaster happened. It is. And we should say right now we know there's 169 Indian nationals on board. Fifty three were British nationals, one Canadian and seven Portuguese nationals.

You know, one of the things that's striking about watching these images right now is we're just watching a lot of people kind of hand pick their way through some of this wreckage and pulling. Earlier we saw images of pulling of suitcases. We also have these charred buildings, which means that's another whole set of potential casualties or dangers. How do you kind of approach an investigation like this?

Well, it's going to be very important for the investigators and the police and their first responders to get there and cordon off that scene.

Because, you know, not saying in this crash or in India, but in other crashes that, you know, have worked in other parts of the world. You know, people have sadly people have come in and removed things from the crash site and that should not be happening. So what they should be doing is obviously looking for any possibility of survivors getting people out of there.

getting any help that they can render to the human beings. And then the untrained people, the people who are not part of the official investigation really need to be removed from the area so the investigators have all those clues possible. Now, because of the advanced model of the plane,

there's going to be an awful lot on those cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders. But by having people going through the site, picking through the site, removing things, I mean, even for example, the placement of the cargo on the plane, the placement of luggage, all of that are important clues and people should not be removing things from the accident site. And remember, the airline is obligated to return to the passengers or to the passengers' families

Their luggage, their personal effects, and that's covered by law. Their personal effects will have to be cataloged. There's a big book now. It's electronic. But all the things that they find that belong to passengers have to be cataloged, accounted for, and then returned to the family. And that's law. International treaty requires that. So things should not be removed.

In the meantime, UK Foreign Minister David Lammy saying he's deeply saddened by this news because of course 53 British nationals were on board this Air India flight. And they are also telling people to reach out to the counselor office as they learn more information. A lot of families right now, as we said, 242 people reported on that flight. A lot of people are waiting for more information.

Mary Schiavo, CNN transportation analyst. I want you to stay with me for a bit as we learn more about this. We're going to continue to bring you this breaking news out of India. This passenger jet that has crashed. Stay with us.

Back now to that breaking news we've been following out of India. An Air India passenger jet has crashed in the western part of the country. The flight had just taken off when the Air India flight gave a mayday call to air traffic control. The jet was heading to London's Gatwick. The United Kingdom has confirmed it is working with authorities in India to support those affected.

We know at this point at least 53 people on board were British nationals. That's according to FlightRadar. The plane was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. So the person I'm bringing in now, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joel Rubin is here to talk more. Joel, one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you is because there were 53 British nationals but also a Canadian, seven Portuguese nationals as well as 169 people from India.

That's a lot of families who are reaching out to whom and what do diplomats end up doing in these situations? You got it, Lottie. And first of all, what a horrible moment. And thank you for discussing it this morning so extensively.

At the State Department, what happens is you have essentially the operations center kicks in and creates a task force that begins to mobilize to deal with all these questions. So our consular bureau will send a representative to it. The bureau that handles South Asia will send a representative to it, and they'll begin coordinating with

all of the airline infrastructure that's needed to be engaged, as well as foreign governments. - And this is different from, for instance, Air India has to have, we heard from Mary Esquiavo, a care team for people and families to reach out to. - This is all about diplomatic communications. We don't know if there are any Americans. I mean, we don't think there are any Americans, but we don't know, and there may be many dual citizens who are Indian as well. And so figuring that out, working with our consulate on the ground in Ahmedabad,

working with our embassy as well in in new delhi and getting a real lay of the land and what the us government then should be thinking about in terms of providing assistance which is the sort of overarching american diplomatic role as well um that's interesting because because we're seeing this happening as we said the western state gujarat um and this uh boeing so far boeing in uh

is saying we're aware of initial reports, we're working to gather more information. Again, this aircraft was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. And is the US involved in any way in terms of support? What would that even mean, a scenario like this?

Well, first of all, we have our technical experts and the Transportation Department, as you've been discussing, they have technical experts who can go and potentially get out to the site. And they also are always in touch with our major aircraft manufacturers with Boeing. And I'm sure they're engaging right now, Boeing leadership and trying to ascertain what they may expect or think about as the possibility for this crash.

And so it's really the US government plays a central role in communication. This goes to a bigger point about America's role in the world as well. Our diplomacy, our State Department, our government assets can really help to coordinate at a moment of disaster, coordinate diplomatic response, engage families, provide technical support. That's a true capacity that we have.

I hope it's kicking in right now. It's been a bit beleaguered, as you know, over the last several months, but that's the capacity that we have. - Okay, Joel Rubin, please stay with us. I wanna bring back CNN's transportation analyst, Mary Schiavo. Mary, we were just hearing from Joel about the coordination through diplomatic circles. You were also talking earlier about what's required for an investigation like this when you have multiple countries involved.

But you said something that really struck me about the site, because we were looking at these images with various people involved in recovery. Earlier, we saw images of luggage being pulled away from the wreckage. You see people there taking photos. And more importantly, buildings are charred, right? This crash happened right in an urban area. How does that complicate this investigation?

Well, immediately it complicates the investigation in that people on the ground and people in the buildings could have been, you know, seriously harmed or killed. And they have to account for those people as well. And, you know, our hearts certainly go out to the people on the ground who are trying, you know, it appears trying to get people, if there is anybody to be gotten off the plane, trying to get people off the plane, trying to get people out of harm's way, get people to ambulances or whatever.

But in terms of removing anything else, you know, structures of the aircraft, I mean, it's going to be very important, for example, to look at the wings, to look at the engines. And if they're moving around things and they aren't the trained professionals doing it, you can dislodge evidence. I mean, here, you know, the investigators are going to be looking very intently at all the takeoff settings for this aircraft.

You know, what were the settings on, you know, the the the flaps, the engines, anything that could have affected that. And so things should not be removed. And it is disturbing. But I do see in the video that you're showing now that the officials are there and they are directing it. It looks appears to be law enforcement or maybe the military. And that's very important. They must safeguard every piece of evidence. And remember, all these are somebody's belongings.

which by law they must return. So it's very important to safeguard that site. And with the officials there, they're clearly doing that.

So right now, India's civil aviation authorities, as you said, they're going to be taking the lead. A lot of people may be involved, as Joel mentioned, including American technical experts. Can you talk to me a little bit about this process? I mean, you have, as you said, a flight industry that's growing in India. So what are the questions that are raised there, as well as the questions about Boeing itself?

Well, in the process, in an air crash investigation, and like I said, sadly, the aviation nations of the world have had a lot of experience and previous accidents to investigate, you know, all over the world.

In an air accident investigation, various teams are formed. For example, one team will be on the pilot performance, the piloting, et cetera. And that team will be comprised of persons who are experts in that area. And that team will sit and will be looking specifically at those particular issues. They will have a survivability team. Was this a survivable act?

And they will look at that. They will have an engine team that will look specifically at the aircraft performance in the engine. Weather doesn't appear to be an issue, but they will have a meteorological team. See, they will be particularly interested because it doesn't look like this plane really ever got much altitude from the initial report that you mentioned about 625 feet. If that's, you know, if that's an accurate radar reporting or altimeter reporting, you

They'll be looking at the conditions of the runway. Is there some reason, for example, if they didn't have an adequate amount of runway or an adequate amount of speed? So they will have an airport issue. And each one of these specialized groups will then come together and exchange information.

Mary, right now we are actually looking at a live picture at a civil hospital. You mentioned the officials on the scene. We are seeing reports also at the scene of the crash of fire department and others who are there. There's one other thing I have to ask you, which is that this year, I think I was just reading that Boeing's chief was saying this was going to be a turnaround year for them, that this was going to be a time when they could kind of

come back from some of the other deadly crashes, the 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019. And then there was that panel that blew away from a 737 MAX while in flight. What questions are out there for them now? Well, everything's on the table for Boeing because obviously this aircraft is being the first aircraft

You know, a hull loss when the whole plane is lost of 787. This is going to be hugely important because of the history. I mean, you never look. Investigators don't look at an accident as a single snapshot. They look at, you know, what else is known, what happened before. How was, you know, for example, let's look at the software. How was the software on this plane developed? Yeah.

You know, what have been the recent changes on it for Boeing? There's a lot on the line. And of course, it could be entirely something else. It could be an issue. You know, maybe they picked up something on the runway. There was a terrible crash, you know, from that. So there are a lot of things. But Boeing has a lot on the table and they have to get it right. They just absolutely have to get it right.

I want to mention now, as we see these images, that India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, said this plane crash has stunned and saddened the country. He said, "It's heartbreaking beyond words. In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected by it."

And he says he's been in touch with ministers and authorities who are working to assist the affected. We should say he actually was a leader in that region before he came to national prominence. So this is going to touch him very closely. Joel, you were listening to that discussion about Boeing. How are you hearing all this?

Yeah, I can't help but think that Capitol Hill will have an interest in this as well. It's not as if Boeing has escaped scrutiny in Congress for its weak performance, frankly, on safety over the recent years. And it does get a lot of subsidy and a lot of contracts from the U.S. government as well. So this is ripe for investigation, not just obviously devastating ground, but also for Congress, because we need to make sure that our planes are safe. And that's just one part of it, right? Talking about

Boeing and its safety record. We're also looking at, Mary said, at the industry in India, the air industry, what is going on with the pilots who are actually able to get off a Mayday call. And also, Mary, you mentioned that there could have been something that got picked up on the runway. I can't imagine what it is like trying to figure that out in the middle of an urban area crash scene like this, where you also now have the element of debris and debris

all of this from the buildings themselves that have also been damaged. - Well, that's right. I remember I worked on one crash where literally pieces the size of a thumbnail

were crucial in the investigation. But the flip side of that is investigators are able to do that. Going back many years to the investigation of the crash of Pan Am 103 in Lockerbie, investigators, officers, law enforcement responders literally walked shoulder to shoulder through the fields trying to find every small piece apart that they could.

And fragmental pieces are what solved that crash. And so they're able to do it, and they have done it, and they've been doing it for decades. But, again, it takes tremendous coordination and discipline. I mean, you can see in the video showing the investigators and the leaders on board, and they're going to have to, you know, kind of rule with an iron hand right now to make sure no one interferes with that crash site.

And not maliciously, people just want to help, but that's very important. Every piece could be important.

Right now, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain saying that he's being kept updated as the situation develops, as there were more than 50 British citizens on board that flight. We were also hearing from Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the country is, as he says, stunned and saddened about this crash in the western part of India. Mary Scavo, thank you so much for bringing your insight here on so many of the technical issues at play on this investigation. We'll be hearing from you later today.

Joel, I want to talk to you as we start to hear from the prime minister, from the UK foreign minister. There's a lot of people now who have to talk to families

Are some of them civil servants or some of them just the airlines? We saw people at outside of a hospital earlier. How chaotic can this be? I mean, this is extraordinary. And any international crisis, piecing it together and getting it coordinated, even as we see on the ground, is extremely challenging. And being that it's in India and being so it's a very significant distance from all this is on camera.

Right. Like seeing people start to pull things apart, seeing people start to gather things for the investigation. I know fire trucks are there dousing out flames from the buildings. What we're not seeing is what the families are dealing with. No. And just how do you begin to

and then contact all of these families in all these different countries. So we'll filter down bureaucratically to the foreign ministries. Do people reach out to consulates? Do people just... If they have an inkling that someone from their family may have been on that flight, yes, they will do that. But it's very ad hoc.

at this moment and getting a manifest of course is crucial but then figuring out who the individuals are and then which government is responsible for engaging takes a lot of coordination. We can just look at this for a moment just so people can see how complex this crash site is.

This Air India jet, this passenger jet, was bound for London. The crew gave a Mayday call to air traffic control. This happened shortly after takeoff. That's according to India's Director General of Civil Aviation. 242 passengers and crew on that flight. We're going to have more for you now on CNN News Central.