A 28-year-old woman says she was saved by a stroke of fate after narrowly missing boarding the Air India flight that crashed near Ahmedabad on 12 June.
Bhoomi Chauhan, a business administration student living in Bristol, England, had been visiting family in Western India when she got stuck in “Bumper-to-bumper” traffic on her return to the airport.
Despite being checked in with a digital boarding pass and no checked baggage, she had arrived less than an hour before departure and was turned away at the gate, being deemed ten minutes too late to board Flight AI171.
Speaking to BBC Gujarati, Chauhan recalled the moment she found out.
“We got very angry with our driver and left the airport in frustration,” she recalls. “I was very disappointed.
“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.
“There, I got a call that the plane had gone down.”
In her interview with BBC News, Chauhan said, “The only thing I had in mind was, ‘If I had started a little early, I would have boarded the plane.’” She added, “It was only after I got the news of the crash that I realised this is nothing but a miracle. God has given me a second life.”
Her boarding pass indicated she was assigned seat 36G in economy class.
One sole survivor from AI171 tragedy
The Air India-operated Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, en route to London Gatwick, crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad airport with 242 people onboard.
The airline confirmed that the flight carried 230 passengers and 12 crew members, including 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese nationals, and one Canadian national.
The plane crashed into the B.J. Medical College, housing medical students, doctors, and their families in the Meghani Nagar area of Ahmedabad, with at least eight people on the ground also reported as fatalities.
In a statement on X, Air India said, “Air India offers its deepest condolences to the families of the deceased. Our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of all those affected, their families and loved ones.”
The sole survivor of the crash, 40-year-old Briton, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, spoke to reporters from his hospital bed at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital. Ramesh had been seated in an exit row seat, 11A and described walking out of the wreckage, saying, “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.”
A moment of fate: ‘My mum was in tears’
Chauhan, who had been in India for her cousin’s wedding, told the BBC that her entire family was shaken by the news. “My mum was in tears. I am just thankful to god and my fate. Nothing else explains this.”
She also said she was not travelling with anyone else on the flight. “I was travelling alone. My entire family had come to drop me off and was waiting outside the airport. If I had boarded the flight, they would have been devastated.”
“When I came to know that the flight had crashed, I was totally numb,” she said.
The emotional impact of the event and the narrow escape are something she says will stay with her forever. “It feels surreal. I’ve been thinking, why me? What does life want me to do differently now?”
Chauhan told the BBC she plans to return to the UK soon, but will always carry the emotion of this moment with her. “I know how lucky I am. I won’t ever forget it.”
