Grieving families in India are preparing to hold funerals on Sunday for relatives tragically killed in one of the world’s most devastating plane crashes in decades.
Health officials in Ahmedabad, a city in western India, have begun the solemn process of handing over the first identified passenger bodies, delivered in white coffins, after DNA testing.
The Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, carrying 242 passengers and crew, crashed into a residential area of Ahmedabad moments after takeoff on Thursday.
The disaster tragically claimed the lives of all on board, except for one miraculous survivor, and killed at least 38 people on the ground.
NGO worker Tushar Leuva, assisting with recovery efforts, expressed the profound emotional toll: “My heart is very heavy. How do we give the bodies to the families?”
Witnesses recounted a scene of devastation, with the aircraft erupting into a fireball upon impact, smashing into buildings used by medical staff.
Relatives are providing DNA samples to help identify victims, with 31 passengers confirmed as of Sunday morning.
Dr. Rajnish Patel of Ahmedabad’s civil hospital described the identification process as “meticulous and slow.” While most of the injured on the ground have been discharged, a few remain in critical condition.
Indian authorities are still investigating the cause of the disaster and have ordered inspections of Air India’s Dreamliner fleet.
Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu hopes the recovered black box will provide “in-depth insight” into the incident.
The sole survivor, British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, tragically lost his brother on the same flight. Air India’s passenger manifest included 169 Indian nationals, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian, along with 12 crew members.
Among the victims was Arjun Patoliya, a father of two young girls, who had travelled to India to scatter his wife’s ashes following her recent death.
Anjana Patel, mayor of London’s Harrow borough, where some victims resided, expressed deep sorrow, saying, “We don’t have any words to describe how the families and friends must be feeling.”
In a stark twist of fate, one woman, 28-year-old Bhoomi Chauhan, survived only because she arrived late at the airport and missed her flight.
“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.