17 from Maharashtra die in Air India crash: First officer weeks away from wedding, 4 of a family
The 32-year-old, whose mother was a former Air India flight attendant, recently started flying long haul international flights and clocked over 1,110 hours. Kunder, a graduate of aircraft maintenance course of the Bombay Flying Club, underwent flying training from Florida. Kunder lived alone in Goregaon while his parents and sister are based in Sydney.
Beside Kunder in the cockpit was Sumeet Sabharwal (60) from Powai, who was set to retire soon.
A total of 17 people from Maharashtra were killed in the tragedy in Ahmedabad.
Mulund resident Shraddha Dhawan (44), a senior cabin supervisor with Air India, was also on the fateful plane. She worked with the airline for more than two decades. Her husband, CK Rajesh, is also a cabin crew member and the couple has a 13-year-old son.
Aparna Mahadik, a 42-year-old resident of Goregaon, was another senior flight attendant on the plane. Her husband, Amol Mahadik, too, works with Air India as a cabin staff. Aparna belongs to a political family as her husband is the nephew of NCP leader Sunil Tatkare.
Among the other crew members who died in the plane crash are Saineeta Chakravarty (35), a resident of Juhu Koliwada who was recently recruited into Air India, Maithili Patil (24) of Nhava village near Panvel, social media influencer Roshni Songhare from Dombivli and Deepak Pathak from Badlapur, who had been an Air India crew member for 11 years.
Among the passengers were Asha Pawar and Mahadev Pawar, an elderly couple from Sangola in Maharashtra, who were residing in Gujarat. They were travelling to London to meet their son. Family members confirmed that the journey had been planned for a long time.
Yasha Kamdar, who hails from Nagpur and is married to a family from Porbandar, was flying with her two-month-old son Rudra and mother-in-law Rakshabhen to London for a prayer and condolence meet for her father-in-law. Her husband, Kishan Modha, who runs a battery business, escaped the tragedy as postponed his travel plan last minute.
'We knew that they were on the flight, but we were not informed of their death. My son has given his DNA samples at the hospital and we are waiting now,' said Manish Kamdar, Yasha's father.
Among the other victims were Javed Ali Syed and his family members. Syed, a resident of Kensington in the United Kingdom, had come to Mumbai along with his wife Mariam and their two children to spend Eid with family members in Malad. 'He visited us to see our mother who recently had a heart attack, also coinciding with Eid,' said Imtiaz Ali Syed, Javed's brother from Mumbai.
As there was non-availability of tickets from Mumbai, they decided to take the flight from Ahmedabad. All four were killed.
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Time of India
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Eight air accidents killed 274 people this year: Govt data
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New Indian Express
a day ago
- New Indian Express
Going beyond blame game to address fear of flying
Not a day has passed since the Air India crash in Ahmedabad when there has not been an incident involving planes—takeoffs aborted, aircraft skidding off runways, engines catching fire, flights returning to base after takeoff, cancellations, and diversions to other airports due to technical glitches have almost become routine. We also had six helicopter crashes involving pilgrims in Uttarakhand in this period, out of which two were fatal accidents. No wonder a sense of foreboding pervades the public's mind. The vivid live video of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner fireball and images of its aftermath are still haunting the imagination of the nation and the world. Though more people die in road and train accidents in India than anywhere else in the world, people are asking, 'Is it safe to fly?' This is why we have to look at the larger picture of Indian aviation today. First, of course, is Air India. The preliminary investigation report into its flight 171 crash has raised more questions than answers. It has stoked conspiracy theories and TV-presenters-on-steroids are working overtime sowing confusion. Aspersions are being cast by the pilots' association on the integrity and fairness of the probe agencies. Charges are being levelled that the truth has already been made a casualty. Given the trepidation in the air, the aviation ministry and Directorate General of Civil Aviation must do everything to earn the confidence of the public and the aviation community. They must speedily conclude the full investigation and publish the report for public knowledge. The cause of the accident must be established without fear—to learn from and avoid future disasters. For itself, Air India has to get its act together fast and earn back the reputation of its glory days during JRD Tata's charismatic leadership in the pioneering phase before independence. The airline lost its sheen and glamour after nationalisation and JRD's exit from the airline. It has had never-ending woes ever since.
The Print
2 days ago
- The Print
‘More careful than colourful'—ThePrint's reporting on the Air India crash put facts first
This Readers Editor column considers ThePrint's approach to its reporting on AI-171 and the subsequent preliminary findings of the investigation by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AIBB) released on 12 July 2025. When you're reporting on something as devastating, sensitive—and immediate—as the Air India-171 crash last month, it is crucial to remember the value of good journalism, amid the endless theories on the reasons for the accident. Good journalism requires good hygiene. That means you have to write clean copy and provide the audience with a clear picture of the events you report. You have to cut out all the frills, the speculation, the 'extras'—which might make your reporting more lively and interesting to read, but don't always give readers accurate, factual, verified information. ThePrint's coverage was descriptive but factual and based on reliable sources. When you go through the articles or watch the videos, you will notice that the reporters are being selective in their choice of words. After reading or watching most of the reporting, I'd say it was more careful than colourful. The day of crash The afternoon of 12 June was just another normal day at ThePrint. I remember that it was a Thursday because I was at ThePrint's office in New Delhi for my weekly meeting with colleagues. It was fairly quiet as afternoons go, with reporters out on assignments, and those in the office staring at the computer monitors or mobile phones. Suddenly, it came to life. I saw people rush to watch the television monitors, and as I joined them, I beheld a sea of serious faces around me. The AI-171 had crash-landed at Ahmedabad airport. Nisheeth Upadhyay, Editor News Operations, realised it was huge. 'Whenever a commercial flight crashes it is a huge deal. We knew this was a big story.' The immediate response was to put out a 'Breaking News' story with the little information available. Next was to check for an accurate reading of the flight's movements up to its fall to the ground. Since I don't work on the editorial side of operations at ThePrint, I began to feel a little redundant, and in people's way. So, I sat on the sidelines and watched. A quick edit meeting was convened and everyone present in the office came together to suggest immediate story ideas. 'We felt, instinctively, that we should report the news as it came through and could be confirmed, but also do stories that added value,' Upadhyay said. 'From the moment it happened, there was so much noise in the media and social media—everyone was playing expert. 'At ThePrint, we were clear: Be sensitive, give the information, don't analyse—just plain, simple facts and information that can be confirmed. No conjecture.'' The difficulty that arose was the lack of access to the facts of the accident—or to any immediate information from the site of the crash in Ahmedabad—ThePrint doesn't have its own correspondent in the Gujarat capital. In stepped, Rama Lakshmi, Editor, Opinion and Ground Reports, and her team to fill the void. 'We had to keep reader interest going,' said Lakshmi. She also had previous experience covering airplane crashes, which helped. 'I put on my reporter's cap and looked for different angles to the story until our reporters reached the accident spot,'' she added. The reporters in the Delhi Ground Reports team filed reports on past history and the context of the incident. 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In 1996, a midair collision between two commercial aircraft over Charkhi Dadri outside Delhi killed 349 people. Krishan Murari had never reported on an air crash or any accident of this proportion. He'd reported on Operation Sindoor and the Pahalgam terrorist attack in May. AI-171 presented a different challenge. 'After Operation Sindoor, coming to this, I realised you need a completely different kind of vocabulary. You have to be far more sensitive. I'd call it compassionate journalism,' he said. Praveen Jain and Krishan Murari reached Ahmedabad within 12 hours of the crash and visited the site, the hospital, and the mortuary. 'It was very hot outside, and even inside, the temperature was higher than it should have been. There was an overwhelming smell of the charred bodies,' Murari added. Together, they filed a number of stories over the next few days. Here are some of them: Meet the forensic dentist racing against time so kin of Air India crash victims can say final goodbye Air India crash: Inside Ahmedabad hospital morgue, bodies await DNA ID as doctors race against heat, time Confusion, debris & bodies at Air India crash site. Rescue worker first thought it was cylinder blast Air India crash: All 4 hostel buildings of BJ Medical College emptied amid site investigation This Air India crash eyewitness cheated death by a whisker—'a blast, then a fireball, just 200 m away' Manasi Phadke found the lack of official information to be one of the major stumbling blocks in her first few days of reporting. 'The media was the least important for them, so we had to source information wherever we could,'' she said, 'We had to be very careful, not speculate.' So, she had to piece together information. Here are some of the stories she filed: 11 DNA matches 48 hrs after Air India crash: Process of releasing victims' bodies to families begins The crash, the rescue & aftermath—Inside the first 36 hours at ground zero of Air India crash Behind the scenes of Gujarat's Air India crash response—4 IAS officers, 36 DNA experts & 230 teams Medical college's exam hall turns into DNA sampling centre. For victims' kin, it's the longest test yet After a week's search, family working in hostel mess cremates mother & 2-yr-old killed in Air India crash Phadke, Jain and Murari turned to doctors, workers, and the families of the victims. 'Families presented a challenge, a lot of them were angry. You can't just walk up to them and say, 'Kya hua?'. 'We had to be sensitive—I didn't use the camera immediately—I waited till they were at ease,' recalled Praveen Jain. As far as possible, he tried to click pictures from a distance. Even, then, one family member of a victim scolded him for taking pictures and Jain immediately apologised. Phadke said she had to make people feel comfortable before they spoke. Some like to speak – 'I am still in touch with at least one relative,' she said, adding, 'You have to talk around the subject, be conversational.' Also read: Inside ThePrint's mailbox—readers bring us praise, critique, and everything in between Unpacking investigation report Back in Delhi, Bismee Taskin, Principal Correspondent, was keeping an eye out for government communications. 'My job was to get in touch with the DGCA, the civil aviation ministry. To confirm information, verify it with at least two reliable sources,' she explained. She was also in touch with former pilots of Air India. When the preliminary report was released on 12 July, she reported it. 'Preliminary report is like an FIR,' said Taskin, 'No conclusions should be based on it. You have to wait till the final report for probable cause.' Taskin's stories, therefore, were straightforward, simply putting out what the report stated. Have a look: Air India crash spotlights 2018 advisory on Boeing switches installed with locking feature disengaged Air India crash preliminary report: A look at what fuel switches are designed to do & built-in safeguards Throughout the last month and a half, victims' families, aviation experts and the average reader want to know what brought the aircraft down? Why did it crash? There are so many technical details to it—and a lay person, with no understanding of them was prey to various theories doing the rounds. Nisheeth Upadhyay is, in his own words, an 'aviation nut''. Thus, it was possible for him to understand the complex (mal)functioning of an aircraft and to explain it in simple language. 'I was very careful not to act as an authority on the subject, just to describe what we knew had happened and to explain,'' he said, 'No aviation experting.'' On the preliminary report, which led to so much speculation and finger-pointing to pilot error in some foreign news media such as the Wall Street Journal, Upadhyay said only the final report mattered: 'There is not enough evidence to attribute blame. And so, ThePrint's line was that—there's not enough information to reach a conclusion.' I would recommend you watch his videos: they are clear, concise, and to the point, factual—without unnecessary opinion or speculation. I know I learned a great deal from them. The common thread in ThePrint's reporting—from the ground and Delhi—was to keep it simple, stick to verified facts and attribute views clearly. I have one suggestion newsrooms like ThePrint could consider: After tough assignments in the field, reporters may need some assistance in dealing with the traumas they witness. It can be overwhelming, especially for young reporters. Counselling is one option, and a few days' leave may help them cope better. Shailaja Bajpai is ThePrint's Readers' Editor. Please write in with your views and complaints to (Edited by Ratan Priya)
