4 days ago
Air India plane crash: 'Bright and wonderful' student from Leeds confirmed dead
A 'bright and wonderful' 22-year old student from Leeds has been named as one of the 241 people who died in the Air India disaster.
Dirdh Patel, an Indian international, had returned to India to ask his girlfriend's family for permission to marry her, family friends have told ITV Calendar.
He was living in Leeds with his brother, Krutik, and sister-in-law, Keya, after he came to the UK to study a masters in Artificial Intelligence at Huddersfield University.
A family friend, Raj Kaur,said he will always be remembered as a "wonderful person."
"He was the nicest, smiliest, and had a positive outlook on life. He'd only just started his adult life. He was so incredibly bright, softly spoken, just a wonderful person. It's a huge shock, really awful.
"It's so heartbreaking because he was so excited to be coming back and set up a life for himself. Knowing his brother, this is going to change them all forever."
Dirdh's brother and his wife have since flown out to India to be with the rest of the family following the news.
Raj says his family are struggling with his death.
"His mother isn't doing very well, she has become quite ill. She dropped him off at the airport and has literally driven away from him and heard the explosion. It doesn't bare thinking about."
The London-bound Boeing 787 struck a medical college hostel when it fell in a residential area of the northwestern city of Ahmedabad minutes after takeoff.
It burst into flames, killing 241 people on board and several students on the ground.
Black smoke billowed from the site where the plane crashed near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city of more than five million and the capital of Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state.
Air India confirmed there was only one survivor on the flight - UK national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh - who is receiving treatment in hospital.
The plane's black box was recovered from a rooftop near the crash site Friday, and India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said it has begun its work with 'full force.'
The plane crash is one of the deadliest in terms of the number of British nationals killed and the first involving a 787.
Aviation experts have speculated about a number of possible causes for the crash, from both engines failing – possibly due to a bird strike, as happened in the so-called Miracle on the Hudson in 2009 – to the flaps on the aircraft's wings not being set to the correct position for take-off.
