No reported affected Filipinos so far in Air India plane crash — OWWA

The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) on Thursday said there have been no reported Filipinos affected by the recent Air India plane crash so far.

“As of now, no reported Filipino nationals affected po. We are continuously monitoring po,” OWWA Administrator Patricia Yvonne Caunan told the media.

According to a Reuters report, the death toll in the crash of an Air India plane bound for London with 242 people on board on Thursday has risen to more than 200, authorities said, in the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade.

At least one person is known to have survived the crash that occurred minutes after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad, police said, and the man told Indian media how he had heard a loud noise shortly after take-off.

The plane came down in a residential area, crashing onto a medical college hostel outside the airport during lunch hour. It was headed for Gatwick Airport, south of the British capital.

The passengers included 217 adults, 11 children and two infants, a source told Reuters. Of them, 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian, Air India said.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has sent his condolences to the Indian government and the families of the passengers who were killed in the incident. — BAP, GMA Integrated News