Air India crash: Woman says traffic jam meant she missed being on doomed flight by minutes
A woman has revealed she missed boarding the doomed Air India plane by mere minutes after being delayed in a traffic jam.
Bhoomi Chauhan, 28, says she was meant to be on the flight that crashed soon after take-off from Ahmedabad on Thursday, killing all but one person on board.
The Bristol woman told BBC Gujarati that she had been in India on holiday and was scheduled to fly home on the flight headed to Gatwick Airport but airline officials would not let her board after she arrived late.
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Ms Chauhan said she was initially angry at missing her flight but now calls it a “miracle”.
“We got very angry with our driver and left the airport in frustration,” she told BBC.
“I was very disappointed. 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.”
BBC reports it checked the business administration student’s digital boarding pass and it showed she had been allocated seat 36G.
The airline said 230 passengers and 12 crew were on board when the plane went down — 169 Indian nationals, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.
Just one passenger, British national Vishwashkumar Ramesh, survived the crash.
“When I missed the flight, I was dejected,” Ms Chauhan said.
“Only thing that I had in mind was, ‘If I had started a little early, I would have boarded the plane’.
“This is totally a miracle for me.”
