(Reuters) -Indian airline IndiGo’s promoter group, Interglobe Enterprises, will likely sell about a 4% stake through block deals and is looking to raise around $1 billion from the sale, news channel CNBC-TV18 reported on Friday, citing sources.

Interglobe Enterprises holds a 35.71% stake in IndiGo, as per data from exchanges.

Reuters was not able to confirm the report independently. IndiGo and Interglobe Enterprises did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

IndiGo’s co-founder Rakesh Gangwal sold a 5.7% stake worth $1.36 billion in the low-cost carrier through a block deal, Reuters reported on May 27.

Shares of the airline were down all through Friday, a day after more than 240 people were killed when an Air India plane bound for London crashed moments after take-off in India’s Ahmedabad city.

($1 = 86.0990 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Manvi Pant in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)

Rescue workers searched for missing people and aircraft parts in the charred buildings of a medical college hostel in Ahmedabad on Friday after an Air India plane crash killed more than 240 peoplein the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with 242 people on board bound for Gatwick Airport south of London took off over a residential area and then disappeared from view before a huge fireball was seen rising into the sky from beyond the houses, CCTV footage showed.

Only one passenger survived after it crashed into the hostel during lunch hour, causing deaths on the ground as well, which local media has put as high as 24. Reuters could not immediately verify the number.

Rescue workers had completed combing the crash site and were now searching for missing people and bodies in the buildings as well as for aircraft parts that could help explain why the plane crashed soon after taking off.

Local newspaper Hindustan Times reported that one of the two black boxes from the plane had been found. Reuters could not verify the report, and the paper did not say whether the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder had been recovered.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi was briefed by officials on the progress of rescue operations when he visited the crash site in his home state of Gujarat on Friday. Modi also met some of the injured being treated in the hospital.

“The scene of devastation is saddening,” he said in a post on X.

A London-bound passenger plane crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on June 12 and all 242 people on board were believed killed, with the jet smashing into buildings housing doctors and their families. Picture: SAM PANTHAKY/AFP via Getty Images

Residents living in the vicinity said that construction of the hostel for resident doctors was completed only a year ago and the buildings were not fully occupied.

“We were at home and heard a massive sound, it appeared like a big blast. We then saw very dark smoke which engulfed the entire area,” said 63-year-old Nitin Joshi, who has been living in the area for more than 50 years.

Parts of the plane’s fuselage were scattered around the smouldering building into which it crashed. The tail of the plane was stuck on top of the building.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that an investigation into the crash was focusing on “whether the aircraft had a loss or reduction in engine thrust”, citing unnamed sources. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the report.

Air India Chief Executive Officer Campbell Wilson also arrived in Ahmedabad in the early hours of Friday.

The company said the lone survivor, a British national, was undergoing treatment in the hospital.

The man told Indian media how he had heard a loud noise shortly after Flight AI171 took off.

Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer, said on Thursday the death toll was more than 240, revising down a previous toll of 294 as it included body parts that had been double-counted.

The dead included Vijay Rupani, the former chief minister of Gujarat state, of which Ahmedabad is the main city.

“Almost 70% of the passengers were found in their seats, most of them had their seatbelts on,” a first responder told the local newspaper Indian Express.

The tail of the airplane is seen stuck in a building at the site of an airplane that crashed in India’s northwestern city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, Thursday, June 12, 2025. Picture: AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

Air India has said the investigation would take time. Planemaker Boeing has said a team of experts is ready to go to India to help in the probe.

While Air India is not publicly traded, shares of rival airline IndiGo parent Interglobe Aviation and SpiceJet were both down 4% in early Friday trade.

Boeing’s shares fell 5% in the crash’s wake on Thursday.

It was the first crash for the Dreamliner, a wide-body airliner that began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.

The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said.

The last fatal plane crash in India, the world’s third-largest aviation market and its fastest-growing, was in 2020 and involved Air India Express, the airline’s low-cost arm.

The formerly state-owned Air India was taken over by Indian conglomerate Tata Group in 2022, and merged with Vistara, a joint venture between the group and Singapore Airlines, in 2024.

-Reuters

As Israeli jets struck targets in Iran on Friday morning, the US moved quickly to distance itself from Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to target Tehran in an escalation that threatens an all-out war in the Middle East.

The unilateral strikes indicated a collapse of Donald Trump’s efforts to restrain the Israeli prime minister and almost certainly scuttled Trump’s efforts to negotiate a deal with Iran that would prevent the country from seeking a nuclear weapon.

It also will probably lead to an Iranian retaliation that could develop into a larger war between Israel and Iran, a new conflict that Trump has publicly sought to avoid.

As the dust was still settling from the strikes in Tehran, senior US officials were reduced to calling the Israeli strike a “unilateral” action and warned Tehran away from retaliating against US embassies and bases in the region.

“Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran,” said secretary of state Marco Rubio in a statement. “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.

“Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defence,” he continued. “President Trump and the administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners. Let me be clear: Iran should not target US interests or personnel.” Washington officials and analysts had expected that Israel would hold off on launching strikes at least until after the US exhausted attempts to negotiate a deal with Iran. During a phone call on Monday, Trump had urged Netanyahu not to attack Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported. But by Wednesday, Trump began to pull non-essential personnel out of embassies and bases in the Middle East within striking distance of Iran.

“There’s clearly some confusion in the US position right now … and some differences between the United States position and Israel’s position,” said William Wechsler, the senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council.

It was unlikely that Netanyahu would have launched the strike if he was explicitly given a red light by the Trump administration, said Wechsler. But the Trump administration had hastily distanced itself from the strike and had also failed to suggest it would participate in defending Israel from a likely Iranian retaliation.

“At least out of the box, it seems to be a rather discordant US response,” he said.

Adding to the confusion, an Israeli broadcaster close to Netanyahu’s government said on Thursday that the strikes were fully coordinated with Washington.

Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, was expected to travel to Muscat in Oman in order to conduct a sixth round of talks with Iran on Sunday in what was seen as a last chance for diplomacy.

And the strikes took place just hours after Trump had publicly urged the Netanyahu government not to attack Iran, with the US president saying that he believed an Israeli offensive would “blow” up the negotiations.

“I’d love to avoid a conflict,” Trump said in remarks from the White House on Thursday. “We are fairly close to a pretty good agreement … I’d much prefer an agreement. As long as I think there is an agreement I don’t want them going in because I think that would blow it.” But, in a nod to speculation that the US was intentionally signaling an imminent attack against Iran, he noted that a strike could also compel Iran to make a deal that would limit its efforts to seek a nuclear weapon.

“It might help it actually but it also could blow it,” he said.

That is now a reality. Critics have said the US decision to retreat from the region, stemming from Trump’s decision to abandon the Iranian nuclear deal called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action under the first Trump administration has led to a greater likelihood of conflict in the region.

The attack was “clearly intended to scuttle the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran,” said Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and is “further evidence of how little respect world powers – including our own allies – have for President Trump”.

“This is a disaster of Trump and Netanyahu’s own making, and now the region risks spiraling toward a new, deadly conflict,” he added.

“Iran would not be this close to possessing a nuclear weapon if Trump and prime minister Netanyahu had not forced America out of the nuclear agreement with Iran that had brought Europe, Russia and China together behind the United States to successfully contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

– The Guardian

The sole survivor of the Air India plane crash that killed more than 240 people said he walked out of a broken emergency exit after the aircraft hit a medical college hostel in the city of Ahmedabad.

Ramesh Viswashkumar, who police said was on seat 11A near the emergency exit and managed to escape through the broken hatch, was filmed after Thursday’s crash limping on the street in a blood-stained T-shirt with bruises on his face.

That social media footage of the British national of Indian origin was broadcast on nearly all of India’s news channels after the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plummeted soon after take-off and erupted in a ball of fire.

It was the worst aviation disaster in a decade.

“I don’t believe how I survived. For some time I thought I was also going to die,” 40-year-old Viswashkumar told Indian state broadcaster DD News from his hospital bed on Friday.

“But when I opened my eyes, I realised I was alive and I tried to unbuckle myself from the seat and escape from where I could. It was in front of my eyes that the air hostess and others (died)”.

Police said some people at the hostel and others on the ground were also killed in the crash. Rescue workers were searching for missing people and aircraft parts in the charred buildings of the hostel on Friday.

Viswashkumar said the plane appeared to come to a standstill in midair for a few seconds shortly after take-off and the green and white cabin lights were turned on.

He said he could feel the engine thrust increasing but then the plane “crashed with speed into the hostel.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived in his home state of Gujarat to visit the crash site, also met Viswashkumar in the hospital on Friday.

Doctors told local media that he did not sustain any major injuries.

“The side of the plane I was in landed on the ground, and I could see that there was space outside the aircraft, so when my door broke I tried to escape through it and I did,” Viswashkumar said.

“The opposite side of the aircraft was blocked by the building wall so nobody could have come out of there.”

Viswashkumar said he walked out of the crash site with only burn injuries on his left arm.

By Sudipto Ganguly and Abhijith Ganapavaram

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) -Rescuers searched for missing people and aircraft debris in charred buildings in Ahmedabad on Friday after more than 240 people were killed in an Air India Boeing 787 crash, and as local media reported that India was considering grounding the airline’s 787 fleet for safety checks.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with 242 people on board bound for Gatwick Airport south of London took off over a residential area and disappeared from view before a huge fireball was seen rising into the sky from beyond the houses, CCTV footage showed.

Only one passenger survived after the plane crashed onto a medical college hostel during lunch hour, with local media reporting as many as 24 people on the ground were also killed. Reuters could not immediately verify the number.

Rescue workers had completed combing the crash site and were now searching for missing people and bodies in the buildings as well as for aircraft parts that could help explain why the plane crashed soon after taking off.

Local media reported that one of two black boxes from the 787 had been found. Reuters could not verify the reports, which also did not say whether it was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder that had been recovered.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was briefed by officials on the progress of rescue operations when he visited the crash site in his home state of Gujarat on Friday. Modi also met some of the injured being treated in hospital.

“The scene of devastation is saddening,” he said in a post on X.

Residents living in the vicinity said that construction of the hostel for resident doctors was completed only a year ago and the buildings were not fully occupied.

“We were at home and heard a massive sound, it appeared like a big blast. We then saw very dark smoke which engulfed the entire area,” said 63-year-old Nitin Joshi, who has been living in the area for more than 50 years.

Parts of the plane’s fuselage were scattered around the smouldering building into which it crashed. The tail of the plane was wedged on top of the building.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources, that an investigation into the crash was focusing on “whether the aircraft had a loss or reduction in engine thrust”.

India’s NDTV reported that New Delhi was considering grounding Air India’s Dreamliner fleet for safety checks. Air India has more than 30 Dreamliners that include the Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 versions.

MODERN, WIDE-BODY JET

It was the first crash for the Dreamliner since the wide-body jet began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.

The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said.

Air India, Boeing and India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the NDTV report on the possible grounding of the fleet.

The lone survivor, a British national, told Indian media how he had heard a loud noise shortly after Flight AI171 took off.

India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said he is in touch with foreign ministers of Britain, Portugal and Canada after citizens from their countries were killed in the crash.

Global leaders have expressed their condolences, including China’s President Xi Jinping who sent his message to India’s president, prime minister and Britain’s King Charles on Friday.

The passengers included 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.

Air India has said the investigation would take time. Planemaker Boeing has said a team of experts is ready to go to India to help in the probe.

Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer, said on Thursday the death toll was more than 240, revising down a previous toll of 294 because it included body parts that had been counted twice.

“Almost 70% of the passengers were found in their seats, most of them had their seatbelts on,” a first responder told local newspaper Indian Express.

The last fatal plane crash in India, the world’s third-largest aviation market and its fastest-growing, was in 2020 and involved Air India Express, the airline’s low-cost arm.

In an unrelated incident, an Air India flight from Phuket in Thailand headed to Delhi made an emergency landing on Friday after a bomb threat was received on board, airport authorities said.

Indian conglomerate Tata Group took control of the formerly state-owned Air India in 2022, and merged it with Vistara – a joint venture between the group and Singapore Airlines – last year.

(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly, Abhijith Ganapavaram, Sumit Khanna and Mahezabin Saiyed in Ahmedabad, additional reporting by Hritam Mukherjee, writing by Tanvi Mehta; Editing by Saad Sayeed and Kate Mayberry)