The tragic crash of AI-171 in Ahmedabad has left the family of pilot Sumit Sabharwal in deep mourning. Sumit, a highly experienced pilot with over 8000 hours of flying experience, was known for his dedication to safety checks. Friends and family gathered at his residence, recalling how he took care of his aging father, who now faces the reality of his son’s absence. Just three days before the fatal flight, Sabharwal had made a heartfelt promise to his ailing father, Pushkaraj, a man in his late 80s, that he would soon resign from his job and return home to take care of him,
Roshni was the heartbeat of her house and very popular on social media too, with over 73,000 followers on Instagram. The 26-year-old was a flight attendant with Air India and her life, which had already taken off and was cruising at a high altitude, was about to soar even higher with a wedding planned for next year. Then the Air India flight AI-171 crashed and exploded in a fireball in Ahmedabad on Thursday, taking her life and dreams – and her family’s heartbeat – with it. She loved international assignments and was excited when she left home to be part of the 12-member crew, including two pilots, on AI-171 from Ahmedabad to London, relatives recalled.
A pall of grief descended on Pullad in Pathanamtitta on Thursday as news broke that Ranjitha Gopakumaran Nair was among the victims of the Air India flight crash in Ahmedabad on Thursday. Ranjitha,39, a nurse, was returning to the UK, where she worked, after a brief visit to her home. The tragedy has left her two children, Induchoodan and Idhika, and her elderly mother, Thulasi, devastated. As news about her death was confirmed by the district administration around 4.30 pm, a large number of people gathered at her ancestral home in Vadakkekavala. Ranjitha, who had worked as a nurse in Salalah, Oman, and later in the UK, was on the cusp of fulfilling her life’s aspirations. She had been working in the UK for the past eight months and returned to India recently to complete the formalities for renewing the government job she had in Kerala. She had secured a job at the Pathanamthitta General Hospital five years ago and was on long leave during which she worked abroad. She had been constructing a new house at Pullad and was planning to move into it along with her children soon. Ranjitha left home on Wednesday afternoon. She travelled to Ernakulam from Tiruvalla on a train and flew from Nedumbassery to Chennai and then to Ahmedabad, from where she boarded the ill-fated flight to London. Neighbours recalled that she had wished to settle down in her hometown and live with her children and mother in their new house.
Arjun Patolia lived in London with his wife Bharati and their two daughters, aged eight and four. People close to the family said Bharati died a few days ago and Arjun flew down to India to fulfil her wish that her ashes be immersed in a pond in her ancestral village of Vadia in Gujarat’s Amreli district. He had come to India to fulfil his wife’s last wish and immerse her ashes in a pond in her ancestral village. Little did he know, when he boarded a plane back to London from Ahmedabad, that he would not make it back home to his daughters either. A memorial service was also organised for Bharati in Vadia earlier this month and Arjun stayed in India for a few days to finish the rituals while their daughters were back in London. On Friday, Arjun boarded Air India flight 171 to London’s Gatwick airport from Ahmedabad and the couple’s two daughters lost their second parent in less than month. Neighbours said the family is in shock. “Arjun’s father is no more and his mother lives in Surat,” said a neighbour. In a week marked by unimaginable grief, the story of Arjun Manubhai Patolia stands out as the most tragic among the victims of the Air India Flight AI 171 disaster.A devoted husband and father, he lost his life shortly after honouring his late wife’s final wish, and now leaves behind two young daughters in London. His daughters now face an unimaginable reality, both parents taken from them in seven days
What was clear was that the disaster had wrought untold devastation on hundreds of families across India and the UK. Prateek Joshi, a radiologist who worked at a hospital in Derby, had boarded the flight with his wife, Komi Vyas, also a doctor, and their three children, ready for the whole family to start their new life together in the UK. In their excitement, they all crammed into one final photo together before takeoff; the mother and father beamed in the foreground, their five-year-old twin sons, Nakul and Pradyut, and their eight-year-old daughter, Miraya, smiled from the seats in the next aisle. Not long after, the whole family was dead.
Kamlesh Chaudhary and his wife Dhapuben, a young couple from Thavar village in Dhanera, were on their way to settle in the UK. Their dreams, carefully built over years, came crashing down with the aircraft. Their grieving family is left clutching photos and memories, instead of visa papers and airport hugs.
In Visnagar, the pain is just as raw. Dinesh Kumar Patel, a lifelong farmer, was taking his first flight — a trip to London to visit his son. His friends had thrown him a heartfelt farewell on the farm, where the old Bollywood song ‘Tu Kal Chala Jayega To Main Kya Karunga’ played in the background. None imagined that the song would become an elegy.
Ratilal Patel, a 71-year-old from Kadi, was going to meet his son Tejas, who had made a life for himself in the UK. Tejas had just bought a home and invited his father to visit. As the family dropped him off at Ahmedabad airport, there was joy and anticipation. But hours later, that joy turned to disbelief as the news broke: the flight had crashed, and Ratilal was among the dead.
Among the deceased were 18 people from North Gujarat, hailing from Mehsana, Patan, Banaskantha, and Aravalli districts. In Chandumana village of Patan, Kuberbhai Patel and his wife Babibehn, were also headed to London to see their son. Eager for the journey, they had boarded the same flight. Their son had waited years for this reunion – now, instead of welcoming his parents, he prepares to perform their last rites.
In Visnagar’s Ganji area, Ankitaben Patel, newly married to Vasantkumar Patel of London, had finally received her visa. Her family had celebrated the moment with warmth and pride. She left on Thursday with blessings and warm wishes, unaware that her first journey to meet her husband would tragically be her last.
The horrific Ahmedabad plane crash brought grief to Rajasthan as 11 passengers from the state were confirmed to be among the dead. Five of them were residents of Banswara, four were from Udaipur, one woman was from Balotra, and another was from Bikaner’s Sridungargarh. Shockingly, five of the victims were children.
One of the most heart-wrenching stories was of an entire family originally from Banswara. Dr Pratik Joshi and Dr Kamini Joshi, both formerly associated with the Udaipur Medical College, were traveling to London with their three children when the crash occurred. Dr Pratik had shifted to London in 2016, while Dr Kamini was reportedly planning to resign from the college and join him abroad. Their three kids included twin sons, Nakul and Pradyut. The accident has devastated both their families in Banswara and Dr Kamini’s colleagues at the Udaipur Medical College.
Another victim, 24-year-old Khushboo Kanwar, hailed from Araba Dudawata village in Balotra district. Married only in January this year, she was traveling to London for the first time to join her husband, Dr Vipul Singh Rajpurohit, who works there. Her sudden demise has plunged the entire village in shock and mourning.
Four passengers from Udaipur district were also among the dead. These include Varardi Chandra Menaria from Rudera village and Prakash Chand Menaria from Rohida village. Both worked as cooks in London and were traveling back together.
Varardi Chandra had returned from London a month ago, and this trip was to return to his job. His wife and son Deepak had accompanied him to Ahmedabad to see him off. Shagun Modi and Shubh Modi, children of local marble businessman Pinku Modi, were also from Udaipur. Both were studying in London.
In Bikaner’s Sridungargarh, another tragic tale unfolded with news of the death of Shiv Parihar, grandson of former MLA Kishna Ram Nai. Shiv, who was running a business in London, had recently helped his father Abhinav Parihar to open a trading office
As he dropped off his only daughter at Ahmedabad airport, Suraj Mistry seized the opportunity to take one final family selfie before she went back to London. Kinal Mistry, 24, had laughed lovingly at her father as he made her promise that they would meet again soon. “Yes, Daddy, very soon,” she said.
Yet even as fragmented bodies and charred limbs continued to be uncovered by rescue teams from the site of the crash, Mistry could not bring himself to accept that Kinal – whom he described as a beautiful dancer “so full of life,” – was among the dead. Like so many on board, her body had yet to be identified, let alone given back to the family. Mistry, sitting in the Civil hospital in Ahmedabad, still in the same clothes he wore when he took his daughter to the airport, was among hundreds of families desperately waiting for answers and clinging to diminishing hope.
“What can I say about Kinal? She was a wonder,” said Mistry, as he began to cry. “She lit up every room with her smile, and she could strike up a friendship with anyone. She was beautiful, inside and out. That’s just who she was.” Her life was only just beginning, he said. She had just got married and moved to London last year, where she worked as a choreographer and had also set up a food business out of her own kitchen, as “she loved nothing more than feeding people”. He said, “In just one day, our whole world has fallen apart. I don’t know if it makes me foolish, but I’m still hoping. Hoping for a miracle. Please, just one miracle.”
For another passenger, Sahil Salim Ibrahim Patel, from a small village in Gujarat, this was his first-ever international flight, en route to London for a dream scholarship that he believed would change his family’s life forever. Meanwhile, Prakash Lal Minarhia, who had been working as a chef in London for 15 years, had come back to India to perform the rituals for the recent death of his father.
Rescuers and forensic teams continued to scour the wreckage on Friday amid scorching temperatures. Naresh Soni, an officer from the National Forensic Sciences University, said the teams were “not only racing against time, but also intense heat. With each passing hour in these extreme temperatures, the risk of biological sample degradation and contamination rises sharply – possibly making the identification of bodies difficult and potentially unreliable.”
As it crashed to the ground, the plane collided with a residential hostel housing hundreds of medical students who were studying at the nearby medical college. Many were eating lunch when the 227-tonne plane smashed down, obliterating the canteen wall and killing at least five students, with at least 50 more injured.
Yet many who had been in the vicinity of the hostel, which stood blackened and ominously empty on Friday, remained missing, yet to be counted among the official dead. As Anita Ben Thakur arrived at the crash site, which was cordoned off by police, she demanded to be let through the barricades. “Let me through, let me through, my mother is inside,” she pleaded with police, before breaking down in tears.
Her mother, Sarla Ben, had been the cook in the hostel canteen for the past 15 years and had been serving food to the student doctors at Thursday lunchtime. She had also brought her two-year-old granddaughter to work with her. Neither has been survived.
“Since yesterday, I’ve been trying to find my mother, but I’ve failed miserably,” she said. “I’ve been running around the entire night, and waiting outside the hospital patiently, hoping for some news – but nothing. And now, they’re not even allowing us near the debris to look for her ourselves.”
Aakash Patni, 15, was killed when he was working at his mother’s tea stall outside the students’ hostel when the plane crashed. His mother, Sita Devi, survived but with burns over half of her body.
Sitting on the pavement outside the hospital morgue, Suresh Bhai Patni, 39, a rickshaw driver, put his head in his hands. On Thursday afternoon, as he did most days, his 15-year-old son Akash Patni had gone to deliver lunch to his mother at the tea stall she ran, situated outside the student hostel. The family would meet at the stall every evening.
At the moment his mother, Sita Devi, sat down to eat, and Akash was watching over the tea, the plane hit the hostel and immediately engulfed the stall in flames. Devi ran towards the stall in an attempt to save her son, and was caught up in the fire, but to no avail. Akash’s charred corpse was later recovered by the authorities. Devi survived but is seriously ill with burns over more than half of her body. “She keeps asking me about Akash, but I just tell her he is also being treated,” said Patni. “How do I tell her the truth? I’m afraid she’ll lose the will to survive. And I can’t afford to lose her, too. Not now. Not after this.”
37-year-old Javed, his wife Maryam, their five-year-old son and four-year-old daughter were among the 242 people aboard Air India flight AI 171, which crashed into a building in Ahmedabad on Thursday. Javed’s mother, who is a heart patient and was slated to undergo a surgery soon, has still not been told that she has lost not just her son, but her daughter-in-law and two young grandchildren.
Yet among the grief, many clung to what they saw as a single miracle to emerge from the tragedy; the sole survivor, 38-year-old British-Indian Vishwash Kumar Ramesh. Still confined to a hospital bed, he had only bruises and scratches to show for the incident.
Speaking to the Indian state broadcaster, the only outlet allowed into the hospital ward on Friday, Ramesh remained hazy about how he had survived, but it appeared he had jumped out of the emergency exit door. “I still can’t believe how I got out alive,” he said.
