Airline stocks tumble up to 4% today after Air India plane crash

Airline stocks such as Interglobe Aviation Ltd (IndiGo's parent), TAAL Enterprises Ltd, SpiceJet and Global Vectra Helicorp Ltd slipped during the afternoon trading session on Thursday after an Air India passenger plane crashed near Ahmedabad International Airport. The plane - Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, was heading to London from Ahmedabad.

Last checked, TAAL Ent shares were down 3.84 per cent while IndiGo slipped 3.01 per cent. SpiceJet and Global Vectra shed 1.85 per cent and 0.96 per cent, respectively.

Additionally, shares of Tata Group companies -- owner of Air India -- also felt the pain today amid a weak performance in domestic benchmarks.

Tata Investment Corporation cracked 3.62 per cent and Tata Chemical fell 2.55 per cent. Tata Power, Tata Elxsi, Tata Steel, Tata Consumer Products and Tata Technologies slipped over 2 per cent, each.

On the global front, shares of Boeing were trading lower in the pre-market trading session, sliding 5.14 per cent.

Aviation regulator DGCA said there were 242 people on board the aircraft consisting of 2 pilots and 10 cabin crew. "The aircraft was under the command of Capt Sumeet Sabharwal with First Officer Clive Kundar. Capt Sumeet Sabharwal is a LTC with 8200 Hrs of experience. The copilot had 1100 Hrs of flying experience. As per ATC, aircraft departed from Ahmadabad at 1339 IST (0809 UTC) from runway 23," it stated.

"It gave a MAYDAY Call to ATC, but thereafter no response was given by the aircraft to the calls made by ATC. Aircraft Immediately after departure from Runway 23, fell on ground outside the airport perimeter. Heavy black smoke was seen coming from the accident site," DGCA added.