Gujarat: Parents of Air India flight crash victim demand investigation into incident

Canada Standard

14-06-2025

Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], June 14 (ANI): The parents of Roger Christian, one of the victims in the AI 171 plane crash, on Friday demanded a thorough investigation into the incident. They said that their son wanted to take them to Europe and promised to have them travel to different countries too.
Roger's father, David Christian, requested the government to investigate the incident and ensure strict action against the people responsible. He also said that such an incident should not be repeated so that another family does not lose their sons or daughters.
'We urge the administration to investigate this. We have lost our son and daughter-in-law but we request that this should not happen to anyone, so strict action should be taken against whoever is guilty,' he told ANI here.
The father also recounted dropping off his son and daughter-in-law to the airport, and talking afterwards, with him saying that he spoke to Roger at 1:15 PM, just a few minutes before the takeoff, and the subsequent accident.
'They had reached here on Saturday and were here for five days. They had their flight, and I had gone to the airport to see them off. After their clearances around 11-11.15 am, they asked me to return home as their flight would have left only after 1.30 pm. So, I returned home. I called them up around 1.15 pm. My son told me that they are seated and they would take off in 15 minutes,' he said.
However, he first got to know about the crash through a relative. Later on, both parents went to the hospital to try to find the couple, and only got to know about their demise.
'I returned home. I called them up around 1.15 pm. My son told me that they are seated and they would take off in 15 minutes...Later, my nephew asked me when Roger and Rachna left for London. When I told him, he told me that the plane had crashed...I then switched on my TV and saw that it was the same flight. We went to the airport,' he said.
The father said that they only got confirmation of the deaths later in the evening, adding, 'The airport officials told us that there was nothing there. They told us to go to the Civil Hospital. At the hospital, we inquired in every ward. By then, we didn't know that everyone onboard died. We could not find them anywhere. Later in the evening, our relatives told us that nobody survived the accident...He had told me to visit him and that he would take me to Switzerland and everywhere else; he had promised me that.'
Roger David Christian and his wife Rachna Roger Christian were visiting their family in Chandkheda area of Ahmedabad had come to the country for just five days. The couple were traveling back to London when Air India flight AI 171 crashed near Ahmedabad airport on Thursday, killing them along with 239 others.
Roger Christian's mother, Sarla Christian said that his son was a man of few words but always took his parents to different places.
She told ANI, 'He was a man of few words and very loving. They were a good couple and shared a good bond. They took us to several places, when they came to visit us. He told us to visit him and that he would take us around London and other places - Switzerland, Scotland and several other places. He had promised his father that he would take him to Finland because our daughter-in-law's brother is in Estonia. But this tragedy happened in the morning. We lost our son.'
In the plane, there were 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese nationals, and one Canadian national. Miraculously, only one person, a British National with Indian origin, survived the accident, identified as Vishwashkumar Ramesh.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ordered enhanced safety inspections on Air India's Boeing 787-8/9 fleet.
As a preventive measure, the DGCA has directed Air India to carry out additional maintenance actions on B787-8/9 aircraft equipped with Genx engines with immediate effect, in coordination with the concerned regional DGCA offices. (ANI)