The captain of the doomed Air India Flight 171 has been credited with saving dozens of lives by guiding the jet away from a row of apartment blocks, moments before it crashed.

The Captain was honored for his bravery and was identified as Sumeet Sabharwal, who was an experienced pilot with more than 8200 hours inside the cockpit.

He was at the controls when his Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound jet for London’s Gatwick lost thrust just seconds after leaving India’s Ahmedabad airport on Thursday.

He and co-pilot First Officer Clive Kunder placed an immediate mayday call, but they had little to over a minute after the engines lost power before slamming into the ground.

The huge passenger jet was making its way to the BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital, and a street of residential properties nearby.

Until the powerless aircraft banked slightly seconds before it slammed into the ground and exploded.

Thanks to the pilot Captain Sabharwal, many who were living in the crowded areas. ‘It’s because of him we are alive today,’- one resident named Jahanvi Rajput mentioned.

‘The green space next to us was visible to him, and that’s where he went’- they shared. Many experts agreed that if the plane went down in an area that was crowded, hundreds more casualties would be expected.