Filmmaker vanishes minutes after Air India crash; phone last traced 700 metres away from wreckage
DNA samples of a filmmaker's family have been submitted to authorities after his mysterious disappearance on Thursday, with his last mobile phone location traced to a spot just 700 metres from the site of the catastrophic
Air India plane crash
in Ahmedabad.
On Thursday afternoon, students of
B.J. Medical College
in Meghaninagar were having lunch in their hostel dining hall when a
Boeing 787
aircraft, carrying fuel, crashed into the building and exploded.
Flight AI171
had taken off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 1:39pm on Thursday. It made a dangerous descent that ended in disaster, killing all but one of the 242 people on board. An additional 29 people died on the ground.
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According to a report from the Press Trust of India, only one of the two black boxes used to record flight data has been recovered by investigators so far. Most victims have not yet been identified, and authorities are relying on
DNA testing
to match remains with relatives. A final death toll has not been released yet. As of now, 80 of the dead have been identified using DNA samples, and 33 bodies have been handed over to family members.
Among those feared dead is
Mahesh Kalawadia
from Naroda, who was also known as
Mahesh Jirawala
. A music album director, Kalawadia was last seen visiting someone in the Law Garden area on Thursday afternoon, according to his wife Hetal.
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"My husband called me at 1.14 pm to tell me his meeting is over and that he is on his way home. However, when he did not return, I called up on his phone but it was switched off. After police were intimated, the last location of his mobile phone showed he was 700 metres away from the crash site," Hetal said.
"His phone got switched off around 1.40 pm (a minute after the ill-fated flight took off). His scooter and mobile phone are missing. All this is unusual since he would never use that route (as per the last location) to come home. We have submitted DNA samples to check if he was one of those killed on the ground due to the crash," she added.
Because of the intense fire and damage caused by the explosion, many bodies were severely burned or dismembered, making visual identification impossible in many cases. Authorities have turned to DNA tests to confirm the identities of those who died in the incident.
Three days after the crash, hospital officials announced on Sunday that DNA testing has helped identify 47 victims so far. Officials also said that 24 of these bodies have been released to their families.
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As the process of identifying all 270 casualties continues, families like that of Mahesh Kalawadia are left waiting for answers. The devastating crash has not only taken lives but also left many families in a state of uncertainty, relying on forensic evidence for closure.
(with PTI inputs)
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