Bhoomi Chauhan, a student living in the UK, says she was saved by traffic. She missed her Air India flight by just 10 minutes — a flight that later crashed, killing 241 people. Bhoomi, 28, lives in Bristol with her husband. She was visiting western India for a holiday and was supposed to return home on Air India flight AI171 from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick on Thursday.
But heavy traffic delayed her journey from Ankleshwar to Ahmedabad airport. She reached the airport around 12:20 PM — just 10 minutes after boarding had started. Even though she had already checked in online and had her boarding pass for seat 36G, the airline staff did not let her board the flight because she was too late. Bhoomi says she begged the staff to let her in but they refused.
Feeling frustrated, she and her husband left the airport and stopped nearby for tea. While speaking to their travel agent about getting a refund, Bhoomi received a shocking call—the plane had crashed.
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“It’s a miracle that I’m alive,” she told reporters. “We were angry at the driver and upset with the situation. But now I realize that traffic saved me.”
The flight took off as planned but crashed just 30 seconds later, hitting a residential area. Along with the 241 passengers and 12 crew members on board, at least eight people on the ground also died.
One British passenger, Vishwashkumar Ramesh, survived the crash and is being treated in hospital. Among the victims were 53 Britons, including entire families from Gloucester and London.
Rescue workers and emergency teams worked through the night to search the crash site and investigate what went wrong.
