Britain's Indian community mourns Air India dead – DW – 06/14/2025
06/14/2025
June 14, 2025
Air India flight 171 had been en route to London's Gatwick Airport when it crashed in Ahmedabad, killing 52 Britons. DW's Birgit Maas spoke with members of the United Kingdom's large ethnic Indian community grappling with the tragedy.
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Int'l Business Times
3 hours ago
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Families Hold Funerals For Air India Crash Victims
Grieving families were due to hold funerals in India on Sunday for their relatives who were among at least 279 killed in one of the world's worst plane crashes in decades. Health officials have begun handing over the first passenger bodies identified through DNA testing, delivering them in white coffins in the western city of Ahmedabad. "My heart is very heavy, how do we give the bodies to the families?" said Tushar Leuva, an NGO worker who has been helping with the recovery efforts. There was just one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the Air India jet when it crashed Thursday into a residential area of Ahmedabad, killing at least 38 people on the ground. "How will they react when they open the gate? But we'll have to do it," Leuva told AFP at the mortuary on Saturday. One victim's relative who did not want to be named told AFP they had been instructed not to open the coffin when they receive it. Witnesses reported seeing badly burnt bodies and scattered remains. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner erupted into a fireball when it went down moments after takeoff, smashing into buildings used by medical staff. Mourning relatives have been providing DNA samples to be matched with passengers, with 31 identified as of Sunday morning. "This is a meticulous and slow process, so it has to be done meticulously only," Rajnish Patel, a doctor at Ahmedabad's civil hospital, said late Saturday. The majority of those injured on the ground have been discharged, he added, with one or two remaining in critical care. Indian authorities are yet to detail the cause of the disaster and have ordered inspections of Air India's Dreamliners. Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday he hoped decoding the recovered black box, or flight data recorder, would "give an in-depth insight" into what went wrong. Just one person miraculously escaped the wreckage, British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, whose brother was also on the flight. Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members. Among the passengers was a father of two young girls, Arjun Patoliya, who had travelled to India to scatter his wife's ashes following her death weeks earlier. "I really hope that those girls will be looked after by all of us," said Anjana Patel, the mayor of London's Harrow borough where some of the victims lived. "We don't have any words to describe how the families and friends must be feeling," she added. While communities were in mourning, one woman recounted how she survived only by arriving late at the airport. "The airline staff had already closed the check-in," said 28-year-old Bhoomi Chauhan. "At that moment, I kept thinking that if only we had left a little earlier, we wouldn't have missed our flight," she told the Press Trust of India news agency. Christians in Delhi held a vigil for the victims of the crash on Saturday AFP Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members AFP At least 38 people were killed on the ground when the plane crashed AFP
DW
21 hours ago
- DW
Britain's Indian community mourns Air India dead – DW – 06/14/2025
06/14/2025 June 14, 2025 Air India flight 171 had been en route to London's Gatwick Airport when it crashed in Ahmedabad, killing 52 Britons. DW's Birgit Maas spoke with members of the United Kingdom's large ethnic Indian community grappling with the tragedy.
Int'l Business Times
a day ago
- Int'l Business Times
Survival And Loss In Air India Plane Disaster
Grieving families are mourning at least 279 killed when a London-bound passenger jet crashed in India, with the victims in Ahmedabad ranging from a top politician to a teenage tea seller. One man on board the plane, which was carrying 242 passengers and crew, miraculously survived the fiery crash on Thursday afternoon. But that lone British citizen was the only story of escape from the jet. "I saw my child for the first time in two years, it was a great time," said Anil Patel, whose son and daughter-in-law had surprised him with a visit from Britain. "And now, there is nothing," he said, breaking down in tears. "Whatever the gods wanted has happened." Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight bound for London's Gatwick airport, as well as 12 crew members. At least 38 people were killed on the ground. The nose and front wheel of the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner landed on a canteen building where medical students were having lunch. Mohit Chavda, 25, a junior doctor in Ahmedabad, described how he escaped through choking black smoke after the plane smashed into the dining hall. "There was almost zero visibility," Chavda said. "We were not able to see even who was sitting beside us -- so we just ran from there." Scorch marks scar the buildings, where chunks of the plane were embedded into its walls. Among the dead was Vijay Rupani, 68, a senior member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party and former chief minister of Gujarat state. But they also included teenager Akash Patni, who Indian media reported had been snoozing under a tree in the fierce heat of the day near his family's tea stall in Ahmedabad. "He caught fire in front of my eyes," his mother Kalpesh Patni said, weeping as she talked to the Indian Express newspaper. "I won't be able to live without him." Businessman Suresh Mistry, 53, said his daughter Kinal was a trained dancer, an excellent cook and a yoga enthusiast. A chef in London, she had been visiting her family in India and postponed her flight to stay a few more days. Mistry described the last time he spoke to her, when she called to say the plane was about to take off and he could head back home without any worry. He said he couldn't stop thinking about how, if she had stuck to her original plan, "she would have been alive". At least 24 people were killed on the ground in Ahmedabad AFP Kalpesh Patni mourns the death of his teenage brother Akash Patni, who was sleeping on the ground when the jet crashed AFP
