India, June 14 -- The aviation ministry on Saturday said that the pilot on the Air India flight that crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12 sent one last radio message to Air Traffic Control (ATC) at 1.39 pm - 'Mayday'.

In a press conference, civil aviation ministry secretary Samir Kumar Sinha said that the flight, carrying 242 passengers and crew members, took off at 1.39 pm and within seconds started losing altitude.

The flight's captain, Sumeet Sabharwal, a Line Training Captain with 8,200 hours of flying experience, immediately made a Mayday call to ATC.

Mayday is an internationally recognised emergency word which is used to send a distress signal to air traffic control.

"At 1:39 pm, the pilot informed Ahmedabad ATC that it was a Mayday,...