Latest news with #AhmedabadCity
Khaleej Times
19-06-2025
- General
- Khaleej Times
Indian canteen worker's hopes dashed, no second miracle in air crash
Ravi Thakor had been hoping his mother and two-year old daughter had escaped just before an Air India jet crashed into the building they were in. A week after one of the world's worst aviation disasters killed more than 270 people in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, Thakor's hopes were dashed when doctors matched his DNA on Wednesday with the remains of his mother Sarla and daughter Aadhya. A canteen worker in a college hostel, Thakor and other family members had left the hostel around 30 minutes before Air India's Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft crashed into the building. Sarla had stayed back, cooking and looking after Aadhya, who was asleep. Thakor and his wife Lalita searched for them in hospitals and the morgue after the crash. After not finding them for days, they said they were hoping for a "second miracle", referring to the lone passenger aboard the plane who survived the disaster. On Thursday, the dead bodies were handed over to Thakor's family for the final rites. "We are going to cremate my mother and daughter. It is very difficult for me to say anything right now, but at least we know what happened to them," Thakor said, struggling to speak. At least 211 DNA samples had been matched, and 189 dead bodies handed over to families, Rakesh Joshi, the medical superintendent at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital told reporters on Thursday.
Arab News
16-06-2025
- General
- Arab News
Relatives wait for remains after Air India crash
AHMEDABAD: Indian health officials have begun handing relatives the bodies of their loved ones after one of the world's worst plane crashes in decades, but most families were still waiting Monday for results of DNA testing. While mourners have held funerals for some of the 279 people killed when the Air India jet crashed in the western city of Ahmedabad, others are facing an anguished wait. 'They said it would take 48 hours. But it's been four days and we haven't received any response,' said Rinal Christian, 23, whose elder brother was a passenger on the jetliner. There was one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the London-bound plane Thursday when it slammed into a residential area of Ahmedabad, killing at least 38 people on the ground as well. 'My brother was the sole breadwinner of the family,' Christian said Sunday. 'So what happens next?' Among the latest victims identified was Vijay Rupani, a senior member of India's ruling party and former chief minister of Gujarat state. His flag-draped coffin was carried in Ahmedabad by soldiers, along with a portrait of the politician draped in a garland of flowers. A two-hour journey away in Anand district, crowds gathered in a funeral procession for passenger Kinal Mistry. The 24-year-old had postponed her flight, leaving her father Suresh Mistry agonizing that 'she would have been alive' if she had stuck to her original plan. Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members. Eighty crash victims have been identified as of late Sunday, according to Rajnish Patel, a doctor at Ahmedabad's civil hospital. 'This is a meticulous and slow process, so it has to be done meticulously only,' Patel said. One victim's relative who did not want to be named told AFP they had been instructed not to open the coffin when they receive it. Witnesses reported seeing badly burnt bodies and scattered remains. Nilesh Vaghela, a casket maker, was asleep when the crash happened early afternoon. 'Then around 5:00 pm, I got a call from Air India saying they need coffins,' he told AFP after delivering dozens. 'My work is very sad. All these innocent people died, small children,' he said. 'Someone has to do it.' The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner erupted into a fireball when it went down moments after takeoff, smashing into buildings used by medical staff. The task of clearing debris from the scorched crash site went on in Ahmedabad, where an AFP photographer saw dozens of workers in yellow hard hats. Indian authorities have yet to identify the cause of the disaster and have ordered inspections of Air India's Dreamliners. The airline said one of its Dreamliners on Monday returned to Hong Kong airport 'shortly after take off due to a technical issue' and was undergoing checks. Indian authorities announced Sunday that the second black box of the Ahmedabad plane, the cockpit voice recorder, had been recovered. This may offer investigators more clues about what went wrong. Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday he hoped decoding the first black box, the flight data recorder, would 'give an in-depth insight' into the circumstances of the crash. Imtiyaz Ali, who was still waiting for a DNA match to find his brother, is also seeking answers. 'Next step is to find out the reason for this accident. We need to know,' he told AFP.
Malay Mail
16-06-2025
- General
- Malay Mail
‘Hoping for a second miracle': Hostel cook searches for missing daughter, mother after Air India crash
AHMEDABAD, India, June 16 — Around 30 minutes before an Air India jet crashed into a college hostel in India, Ravi Thakor, the cook in the hostel canteen, and his wife stepped out to deliver lunchboxes – leaving behind their two-year-old daughter and his mother. The grandmother and child are missing. Thakor is hoping for what he calls a 'second miracle', one like the astonishing survival of the sole passenger among the 242 people on board the plane. Thakor said he first thought the loud bang he heard when the plane crashed on Thursday in the western city of Ahmedabad was a gas cylinder blast, but soon noticed the building he had just left was engulfed in flames. For days, he's been searching for his mother and his daughter at hospitals and the morgue to no avail. Police told Reuters they were treating it as a missing persons case. 'If one of the plane passengers could survive the crash, there could be a second miracle and my mother and daughter could also be safe,' a visibly distraught Thakor told Reuters outside one of the hospitals. His wife Lalita stood beside him, stone-faced. 'We realise that the chances of finding them alive are bleak but we have not given up hope,' Thakor said. In all, at least 271 people died in the crash – the 241 passengers and crew in the plane, and the rest people on the ground, mostly in the hostel building. Thakor and his wife have given samples of their DNA to hospital authorities but they are yet to hear if any matches have been found among the deceased. Families of victims have been waiting to take possession of their loved ones' remains for days as DNA profiling and other identification checks are taking time. The hospital's additional superintendent, Rajnish Patel, said on Sunday DNA samples of only 32 deceased have been matched so far. When the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner jet struck the hostel canteen on Thursday, many students were eating lunch. Steel tumblers and plates still containing food lay on the few tables that were left intact when Reuters visited the site later. Thakor's mother was still cooking when he and his wife left the hostel that day to deliver lunchboxes and he had just rocked his daughter to sleep on a wooden swing, he said. 'It is possible someone took away my daughter in the chaos that followed,' he said. Of the 242 on board the plane, the only passenger who managed to survive was Viswashkumar Ramesh, 40, who squeezed through the broken hatch after the plane crashed and emerged with only minor injuries. — Reuters
Arab News
15-06-2025
- General
- Arab News
Families hold funerals for Air India crash victims
AHMEDABAD, India: Grieving families were due to hold funerals in India on Sunday for their relatives who were among at least 279 killed in one of the world's worst plane crashes in officials have begun handing over the first passenger bodies identified through DNA testing, delivering them in white coffins in the western city of Ahmedabad.'My heart is very heavy, how do we give the bodies to the families?' said Tushar Leuva, an NGO worker who has been helping with the recovery was just one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the Air India jet when it crashed Thursday into a residential area of Ahmedabad, killing at least 38 people on the ground.'How will they react when they open the gate? But we'll have to do it,' Leuva said at the mortuary on victim's relative who did not want to be named said they had been instructed not to open the coffin when they receive reported seeing badly burnt bodies and scattered Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner erupted into a fireball when it went down moments after takeoff, smashing into buildings used by medical relatives have been providing DNA samples to be matched with passengers, with 31 identified as of Sunday morning.'This is a meticulous and slow process, so it has to be done meticulously only,' Rajnish Patel, a doctor at Ahmedabad's civil hospital, said late majority of those injured on the ground have been discharged, he added, with one or two remaining in critical authorities are yet to detail the cause of the disaster and have ordered inspections of Air India's Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday he hoped decoding the recovered black box, or flight data recorder, would 'give an in-depth insight' into what went one person miraculously escaped the wreckage, British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, whose brother was also on the India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew the passengers was a father of two young girls, Arjun Patoliya, who had traveled to India to scatter his wife's ashes following her death weeks earlier.'I really hope that those girls will be looked after by all of us,' said Anjana Patel, the mayor of London's Harrow borough where some of the victims lived.'We don't have any words to describe how the families and friends must be feeling,' she communities were in mourning, one woman recounted how she survived only by arriving late at the airport.'The airline staff had already closed the check-in,' said 28-year-old Bhoomi Chauhan.'At that moment, I kept thinking that if only we had left a little earlier, we wouldn't have missed our flight,' she told the Press Trust of India news agency.
CBC
13-06-2025
- General
- CBC
Investigators search Air India crash site for evidence and more victims
Investigators searched the site of one of India's worst aviation disasters, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with the lone surviving passenger Friday a day after an Air India plane split apart and fell from the sky, killing 241 people on board and several people on the ground. 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 Thursday. DNA testing was being conducted to identify bodies that were mostly charred beyond recognition. More victims are expected to be found in the search at the crash site. There was no information on whether the black boxes — the flight data and cockpit voice recorders — had been recovered. The plane hit a building hosting a medical college hostel and burst into flames, killing several college students on the ground. Black smoke billowed from the site where the plane crashed near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city of more than 5 million and the capital of Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state. "We are all devastated by the air tragedy in Ahmedabad. The loss of so many lives in such a sudden and heartbreaking manner is beyond words," Modi said on social media after visiting the site. "We understand their pain and also know that the void left behind will be felt for years to come." Modi meets lone survivor The survivor was seen in television footage meeting Modi at the government hospital where he was being treated for burns and other injuries. Viswashkumar Ramesh told India's national broadcaster he still can't believe he was alive. He said the aircraft seemed to become stuck immediately after takeoff. He said then the lights came on, and right after that it accelerated but seemed unable to gain height before it crashed. WATCH | Lone survivor walked from site to ambulance: Sole survivor walks away after fiery Air India crash kills hundreds 8 hours ago Duration 3:30 A fiery plane crash in western India has left a single surviving passenger, a British national, who reportedly walked from the site to an ambulance. The London-bound Air India Boeing 787 went down just after takeoff with 242 people aboard, including at least one Canadian. He said the side of the plane where he was seated fell onto the ground floor of a building and there was space for him to escape after the door broke open. He unfastened his seat belt and forced himself out of the plane. "When I opened my eyes, I realized I was alive," he said. Investigation into the cause and identification of victims India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is investigating, and the U.S. participants in the probe are expected to include people from the National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing and General Electric. Medics are conducting DNA tests to identify those killed, the president of the Federation of All India Medical Association, Akshay Dongardiv, said. Meanwhile, grieving families gathered outside the Civil hospital in Ahmedabad on Friday. Two doctors at the hospital said the bodies of four medical students killed on the ground after the plane crash were handed to their families. They said at least 30 other injured students were still admitted in the hospital and at least four of them were critical. Modi is scheduled to hold a meeting with senior officials later Friday. He also met some of those injured on the ground during the hospital visit. WATCH | 1st crash involving Boeing 787 Dreamliner: Boeing to support India's crash investigation, the 1st involving a 787 Dreamliner 6 hours ago Duration 1:56 Boeing has pledged to support the India-led investigation into the deadly air disaster in Ahmedabad — the first involving a 787 Dreamliner. Boeing has previously faced tough questions over several crashes and incidents involving its 737 Max aircraft. Thursday's Air India crash involved a 12-year-old Boeing 787. Boeing planes have been plagued by safety issues on other types of aircraft. According to experts, there are currently around 1,200 of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide, and this was the first deadly crash in 16 years of operation. Eyewitness accounts describe damage Residents living in the vicinity, who were among the first to rush to the crash site and help with rescue, described the scale of damage like they had never seen. "In the beginning, I couldn't understand anything, it was only smoke everywhere. We could see some small parts (of the plane) burning," Indrajeet Singh Solanki said. Solanki said he and many others helped the injured people and rushed them to hospitals. "We had only one aim - to save lives no matter what happens," he said. The tragedy has left him shaken. "It will be hard to sleep for the next few days at least," Solanki said.
