Air India crash | ‘Everything was smoke’: Ground survivors recall first moments of crash

Ahmedabad: Fifty-five-year-old Kalpna Mulusare was near the lift of Atulyam -4, a hostel for MBBS students of the BJ Medical College, Ahmedabad, when she heard a loud and unfamiliar noise. She didn’t bother first, but then came a deafening sound like a blast.

“All I now remember is the screams of doctors, their family members and everyone else stuck in the building. Before I could realise what was happening, everything turned dark as a pall of smoke blocked the vision around. Some watchmen and I pulled out four-five people and ran away from the building. We couldn’t do much due to the blaze which was burning everything on its way,” she said from the bed of a private hospital where she is recovering from burn injuries.

Kalpana also wanted to look out for her daughter, Ruchita, who was also in one of the buildings. The mother and daughter have been working as cooks for the families of doctors and MBBS students. Both survived the accident that came down from the sky on June 12, when Air India’s London-bound flight crashed onto the mess and hostel buildings of the medical college.

Access to the crash site has been blocked since the accident for collection of evidence.

Even though the state government hasn’t released the number of casualties on the ground due to the crash, several sources said at least 30 people trapped in the hostel and mess buildings lost their lives. On Saturday, the BJ Medical College’s Junior Doctors’ Association acknowledged that four MBBS students — Jayprakash Chaudhary, Manav Bhadu, Aryan Rajput and Rakesh Dihora were killed. Besides, four members of two doctors’ families also died.

The association told DH that 270 bodies had been brought to the hospital. The ill-fated aircraft had a total of 242 passengers and crew. Only one of them survived the crash. This means at least 29 people on the ground lost their lives in the accident.

The ground toll included 15-year-old Aakash who was sleeping on a pavement near the hostel building. His family, which used to sell tea in a roadside shack, believes he was killed in the ensuing fire. Two other persons -- Sarla, a cook, and her granddaughter Aadhya are still missing. Police sources said there were over a dozen people who haven’t yet been traced.

DH reached out to several students, including association members, who refused to comment saying they didn’t have the authority to speak to the media.

Ved Khatra, one of the students who survived the crash, told a local daily that he was having lunch in the mess on the first floor when the incident happened. “As soon as I started to eat, there was a loud explosion and everything disappeared in the dust. The plane crashed into the building from the direction of the stairs. I was sitting four tables away from where the plane crashed.”

According to a source who is deployed at the site the Dreamliner possibly scratched a tree before hitting the mess building first and then crashed onto the hostel. Those buildings are covered in black soot.

The crash site has been cordoned off and is being guarded by the police. “Everything there burnt — people, houses, birds, dogs and trees,” another source, who has been guarding the site, told DH.