Featured Image Credit: BBC
Topics: Air India, Travel, India, News, World News
Niamh Shackleton
A woman is counting her blessings after being turned away from the Air India flight that crashed on Thursday (June 12).
Shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad in India for a flight that was supposed to be making its way to London Gatwick, tragedy struck, and the aircraft crashed 30 seconds into its journey.
The plane was carrying over 200 people onboard, one of which was supposed to be Bhoomi Chauhan.
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Bhoomi is a British citizen who was heading home to Bristol, UK, after visiting western India for a vacation.
She was heading back to England on Thursday but arrived at the airport less than an hour before departure. With this in mind, Bhoomi was 10 minutes late for boarding and as a result, staff refused to let her on the Air India flight.
Why she was late? Bad traffic.
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"I could not reach the airport despite all the attempts," she told the BBC. "We got stuck in traffic in Ahmedabad. We had to go into the city area to make a turn towards the airport and there we got stuck in a traffic jam."
Bhoomi went on: "Due to traffic congestion I was late to the airport by 15-20 minutes. My flight was due to take of at 13:10 I reached the airport at 12:20."
This was 10 minutes after boarding was due to commence and the airline had closed check-in for the flight at this point, meaning she wasn't allowed onboard.
"We got very angry with our driver and left the airport in frustration," Bhoomi further recalled.
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"We left the airport and stood at a place to drink tea and after a while, before leaving... we were talking to the travel agent about how to get a refund for the ticket. There, I got a call that the plane had gone down."
She described it as a 'miracle' that she wasn't on the aircraft as planned.
Heartbreakingly, only one person survived Thursday's crash, that being Vishwash Kumar Ramesh.
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Speaking to the Hindustan Times, Vishwash recalled the moments that unfolded on the plane.
"Thirty seconds after takeoff there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly," he said.
"When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me. Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital."
If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact GrieveWell on (734) 975-0238, or email [email protected].