Twin tragedies: Kids lose mother to cancer, father to Air India crash

On the way to Surat from Ahmedabad, a mother's quest to see off her grieving son spiralled into further grief on Thursday as the Ahmedabad-London Air India flight came crashing down.

According to a report by Indian Express, British national Arjun Patoliya, 37, had come down to Gujarat to immerse the ashes of his wife Bharti, who had died of cancer days back. His mother, Kanchan, was on her way to Surat from Ahmedabad when the crash took place.

Informed by her nephew about the crash, Kanchan had to rush back to Ahmedabad to provide her DNA sample for the identification of the body of her dead son.

With both Arjun and his wife passing away to due to unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances, the couple's daughters, Riya (8) and Kiya (4), lost both their parents in a span of 18 days.

"I was in shock after learning about the death of my elder son in the plane crash. His wife, Bharti (35) died due to cancer on May 26. Now both his daughters have become orphans. Arjun had left both the girls at his younger brother Gopal’s place before coming to India with the remains (ashes) of his wife, whose wish was to immerse them in the Narmada river," a grieving Kanchan told IE.

"Either I or my younger son will now take care of Arjun’s daughters," she added.

This heartbreaking story is one of many: the AI 171 crash left many lives shattered and efforts are under way to identify the bodies of those deceased.

As of writing this, around 40 bodies had been identified using DNA testing, including that of former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.

The Boeing 787 flight had crashed soon after taking off from the Ahmedabad airport, killing all but one of the 242 people on board, including 230 passengers, 10 crew members, and two pilots.