“Only thing that I had in mind was, ‘If I had started a little early, I would have boarded the plane,’ ” said Bhoomi Chauhan
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(750x568:752x570):format(webp)/air-india-flight-171-crash-site-061325-1aa7505f006e4296b81c36c0071d4bee.jpg)
NEED TO KNOW
- Bhoomi Chauhan, who was visiting India on holiday, said she was caught up in a traffic snag while en route to the Ahmedabad airport
- She said airline officials wouldn’t let her board the plane after she arrived shortly before departure time
- Chauhan’s digital boarding pass showed she would’ve sat in economy class had she been on the doomed flight
A woman from Britain said bumper-to-bumper traffic caused her to miss the Air India flight to London that later crashed, killing 241 people in Ahmedabad, India, on Thursday, June 12.
In an interview with BBC Gujarati, Bhoomi Chauhan, 28, of Bristol, England, who was visiting India on holiday, said that when she arrived at the airport shortly before the plane’s departure, airline officials would not let her board.
“We left the airport and stood at a place to drink tea and after a while, before leaving… we were talking to the travel agent about how to get a refund for the ticket,” Chauhan told the BBC, adding that she received a call that the plane went down.
The Boeing 787-8 aircraft bound for London’s Gatwick airport crashed shortly after takeoff. The airline stated that at the time of the flight, there were 230 passengers and 12 crew on board the aircraft.
“The passengers comprised 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, 7 Portuguese nationals and 1 Canadian national,” the airline said in a statement via X.
Of the 242 people on board the plane, only one person — a British man — survived the disaster, Air India said.
“Air India offers its deepest condolences to the families of the deceased,” the company further added. “Our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of all those affected, their families and loved ones.”
BBC News reviewed Chauhan’s digital boarding pass, which indicated she as assigned to economy class seat 36G.
“When I missed the flight, I was dejected,” she further recalled. “Only thing that I had in mind was, ‘If I had started a little early, I would have boarded the plane.’ “
Chauhan acknowledged how lucky she was to have missed the flight.
“This is totally a miracle for me,” she told the outlet.
In an interview with DD News from his bed in Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, reportedly the sole survivor of the crash, said, “I don’t know how I survived. I saw people dying in front of my eyes – the air hostesses, and two people I saw near me… I walked out of the rubble,” per the Hindustan Times.
“Even I can’t believe how I came out of it alive. For a moment, I felt like I was going to die too. But when I opened my eyes and looked around, I realized I was alive. I still can’t believe how I survived,” Ramesh added.
On Thursday, Air India announced that it has established friends and relatives assistance centers at Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Gatwick airports “to provide support and take care of the needs of the families and loved ones of those on flight AI171.”
“These centres are facilitating the travel of family members to Ahmedabad,” the airline‘s statement continued.
