Woman whose son died in Air India crash recalls seeing site for the first time
Topics: Air India, ITV, This Morning
Britt Jones
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/This Morning
Topics: Air India, ITV, This Morning
A mother who lost her son in the Air India disaster explains what she saw when visiting the scene of the crash days after receiving the call.
Air India Flight AI171 happened just one year ago, with June 12th marking the anniversary the jet crashed just 30 seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad airport, India.
At the time, it was carrying 242 people, as it set off towards London Gatwick, carrying Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, the sole survivor.
Not only did it take away hundreds of people in the vehicle, but also 19 people on the ground when it crashed into a residential building close by.
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A preliminary investigation into the crash found the aircraft had the fuel for its engines cut off, and that the switches were switched from 'RUN' to 'CUTOFF' moments before impact.
However, the investigation continues, with mom of victim Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek, 39, still looking for answers.
Amanda Donaghey has revealed her plans to soon return to India after having previously visited the nation in a bid to bring her son’s remains home – only to have been given the wrong one.
Speaking on ITV's This Morning, she revealed that when she first heard about the crash, she believed her son and his husband, Jamie, were safe as she mistakenly thought they had come home days later.
But a phone call left her ‘screaming’ as she was thrown into a reality that changed her life.
Fiongal and Jamie were in India to celebtrate their third-year wedding anniversary, and when she learned her son wasn’t coming home, she said she had an urge to collect him.
She said: “When that scream stopped, I just had to go there. I felt a very strong need to go and bring him home.
"I got a plane and went straight to the hospital, two days getting there, and gave a blood sample to help with the matching. I was very well supported by the High Commission and the Red Cross."
When she got there, Amanda was able to see the crash site where her son had his final moments.
Speaking with hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Sheppard, she said: “So, I was kindly allowed to go to.”
She went on to recall that the ‘devastation was enormous’, but to see the ‘size’ of it, made it ‘all very real’.
Amanda revealed that India’s hot weather and infrastructure didn’t allow for a clear cleanup process or site lockdown and described how civilians were able to walk through and help with removing debris.
Calling ‘chaotic’, she said there was a ‘heavy plant’ just ‘few days after, rolling over the remains’.
While Amanda eventually was handed with remains to go home with, something went very wrong within the process.
Despite the match and paperwork, she said the remains were later confirmed by a UK coroner not to be her son.
Sadly, she also described how the remains of the Air India victims were ‘incinerated’ because of the amount, lack of facility to store them, and the hot weather.
Now, her son’s remains are missing, and she plans to return to find out more about what happened to his body.