The long wait for relatives at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital deepens their pain. They await the remains of the passengers of the crashed Air India flight AI171. Identification has not been easy as the bodies were completely charred. Only about a dozen victims have been identified thanks to DNA samples taken from parents, children, or siblings. "There is no room for error here. We must ensure that each family receives the correct body," said Rajnish Patel, the medical director of the center.
On Saturday, the death toll from the accident of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner heading to London and crashing into a residential area in Ahmedabad, western India, rose to 279. Only one of the 242 passengers on board survived.
The plane, just 30 seconds after takeoff, crashed into a residential neighborhood, directly hitting a part of the building where the medical school's cafeteria was located, 1.5 kilometers from the airport. It was 1:39 p.m. local time, and at least 35 students were in the cafeteria at that time. Several of them are among the victims.
Thursday's accident was the deadliest air disaster in the world since July 2014 when a Boeing 777 of Malaysia Airlines flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by a missile over Ukraine, leaving 298 dead.
This weekend, Indian aviation authorities announced that all Boeing 787s operated by local airlines would be inspected. They also confirmed that the pilot of the plane, Sumeet Sabharwal, sent a distress call to air traffic control less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad airport. "Falling... Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" he exclaimed.
"The 227-ton aircraft had reached an altitude of 650 feet (198 meters) after takeoff, but then began to descend rapidly and crashed into a hostel where medical students and their families were staying. In addition to the students, the pregnant wife of a doctor and several vendors working in the area also died," explained Samir Kumar Sinha, Secretary of the Ministry of Aviation of India.
On Friday, one of the two black boxes of the plane, the flight data recorder normally stored in the rear, was found. This can help investigators decipher the causes of the accident. "Decoding this black box will provide a deep insight into what really happened," said Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, Minister of Civil Aviation, adding that a team of four British experts is in Ahmedabad to assist in the investigation.
Just like in India, there is great shock in the UK over the incident. British media have been revealing the profiles of the passengers on the plane. Javed Ali Syed, a hotel manager in London, and his wife Mariam were traveling with their children, five-year-old Zayn and four-year-old Amani. Raxa Modha, 55, and her two-year-old grandson Rudra were returning to attend her husband's funeral. The couple Komi Vyas and Prateek Joshi, both doctors, were traveling with their three children. They took a family selfie just before takeoff.
Jamie Greenlaw-Meek, 45, and her husband Fiongal, 39, ran a wellness center in the UK and had traveled to the Asian country to participate in a spiritual retreat. Sisters Dhir and Heer Baxi were returning to London after surprising their grandmother for her birthday.
Arjunbhai Patoliya, 37, was in India to scatter the ashes of his wife, who had died of cancer three weeks earlier. Also on the plane was Vijay Rupani, the former Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat, where Ahmedabad is located.
Amidst all this tragedy is the extraordinary case of the sole survivor, British businessman Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, who is recovering from injuries in the hospital and is out of danger. Ramesh was seated in 11A, by the left window, just behind an emergency exit. His brother, Ajay Kumar Ramesh, was also on the plane but did not survive. The other miracle is the story of a 28-year-old student, Bhoomi Chauhan, who arrived 10 minutes late at the boarding gate and was not allowed to board the plane by airport staff.