San Francisco Frontiers - Volunteer rescuers describe horror at India plane crash site

Bharat Solanki, 51, was working at a fuel station when the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner -- carrying 242 passengers and crew -- took off from nearby Ahmedabad airport around lunchtime on Thursday.

Less than a minute later it ploughed into a residential area, bursting into searing flames with what residents described as an ear-splitting blast.

All but one aboard the plane was killed, and at least 24 others died on the ground.

Solanki and a couple of friends rushed to the site.

"We saw bodies everywhere -- they were in pieces, fully burnt," he said, recalling the horror of the scene.

"We took out dead bodies", he said, adding that he also helped bring out those injured from the medical hostel and nearby buildings that the plane smashed into.

"Everywhere just bodies, parts, body parts. The bodies were totally burnt. It was like coal."

- 'Didn't get a chance' -

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited the crash site on Friday morning, called it a "scene of devastation".

He was seen peering up at a fire-blackened multi-storey building with the plane's wheels and tail embedded in a wall.

Authorities have set up DNA testing for relatives of passengers and those killed on the ground to identify the scorched bodies and body parts.

It may be weeks before a final death toll is confirmed.

Home Minister Amit Shah, speaking after visiting the crash site on Thursday, said the plane was carrying 125,000 litres (27,500 gallons) of fuel.

The "temperature was so high that one didn't get a chance", he said.

Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and a Canadian on board the flight bound for London's Gatwick airport, as well as 12 crew members.

Sona Prakash, who was close to the residential blocks of the medical accommodation, described how the "hostel was destroyed", adding that "so many doctors were injured, so many died".

Another witness, 35-year-old labourer Patani, who uses only one name, said those around him thought a bomb had gone off before they realised it was a plane crash.

"There was black smoke everywhere, plumes of smoke", added Vinod Bhai, another labourer.

"The sky was only black, that's how much smoke was there."

Forensic teams are searching for the black box flight recorders that will detail the last moments of the flight for crash investigators.

Z.Phillips--SFF