"Investigations will take time, but anything we can do now, we are doing," Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said in a video statement on Thursday.

“Thrust not achieved... falling... Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” the pilot said moments before the aircraft began losing height and erupted in a fireball.

Viswashkumar Ramesh, a British national of Indian origin, was on the flight headed to London that crashed minutes after taking off from India’s northwestern city of Ahmedabad on Thursday afternoon.