An Air India passenger flight with more than 240 people on board crashed Thursday shortly after taking off in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, according to the airline.

The flight, AI171, was headed for England’s London Gatwick Airport on a Boeing 787-7 aircraft.

Of the 242 passengers and crew members on board, 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were British nationals, one was a Canadian national and seven were Portuguese nationals, according to Air India.

Local news outlets showed images of smoke surrounding the crash site, according to The Associated Press, which reported that it appeared to be in a populated area near the airport. Firefighters responded to the crash, dousing the plane and surrounding building with water.

Information was not immediately available on fatalities.

India’s health minister, Jagat Prakash Nadda, said “many people” had been killed, calling the news “extremely tragic.”

Air India said those injured were taken to the nearest hospitals.

“The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us. It is heartbreaking beyond words," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on social platform X. " In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected by it."

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also expressed his sympathies.

“The scenes emerging of a London-bound plane carrying many British nationals crashing in the Indian city of Ahmedabad are devastating,” he wrote on X. “I am being kept updated as the situation develops, and my thoughts are with the passengers and their families at this deeply distressing time.”