AP PHOTO: Air India plane's tail juts from a building

AHMEDABAD – At first glance, the photo looks unreal: the tail of an airliner jutting out from an unremarkable building.

There are no people in the image — no rescuers, no police, none of the thousands gathered outside the cordon. But it captures the violence of the Air India crash: the ripped tail fins still clinging to the plane, the jagged cavity torn into the building’s facade, the web of cracks spriraling outward.

The battered building in Ahmedabad, quiet in the stillness that follows the devastation, had served as the dining area for medical students. The London-bound plane that crashed was carrying more than 240 passengers — there was one survivor. The students were having lunch — at least five of them died, and 50 were injured.