Missing the flight and saving her life: the other survivor of the plane crash in India

BarcelonaTraffic on the outskirts of the Indian city of Ahmedabad prevented Bhoomi Chauhan from arriving at the airport on time. This caused her to be ten minutes late for her flight and miss her flight to London. But those ten minutes saved her life. The Air India plane crashed shortly after takeoff: everyone died, except for one man.

Bhoomi Chauhan has assured several media outlets that her mind is "completely blank" after the shock caused by the news of the accident that caused the death of 241 passengers. "I am totally devastated after hearing about all the deaths that occurred. I still have chills and I find it difficult to speak," says the Bharuch native, who believes that the god Ganesha has saved her.

"The flight was scheduled for 1:10 p.m., but boarding closed an hour earlier. I arrived at the check-in gate at 12:20 p.m. and insisted on being allowed on the plane, but despite my insistence, they didn't let me through and I left," she explained on television. Chauhan left the airport at 1:30 p.m., and eight minutes later the plane crashed in the residential area on the outskirts of the airport.

According to Hindustan NewsChauhan hadn't been to India in two years and had recently returned to her hometown to visit family. On Thursday, she was headed to the airport with her father to return to London, where she lives with her husband.

The sole surviving passenger on board the plane

A British citizen is the sole survivor aboard the Air India flight that crashed Thursday, just seconds after takeoff. Forty-year-old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a London resident, described from his hospital bed how he saw bodies everywhere after the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plummeted 190 meters into a densely populated suburb of Ahmedabad, in western India. Police reported that the survivor was in seat 11A. They also said that between the 241 passengers who died and the number of casualties left on the ground, there were more than 290 deaths. "Everything happened very fast," explained Ramesh, who suffered injuries to his face, chest, and feet. It is still unclear how he survived, but some parts of the plane appeared to have remained intact after the impact.

"When I woke up, there were bodies everywhere. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me," the survivor told theHindustan Timesfrom the hospital. Air India flight AI171, en route from Ahmedabad to Gatwick Airport, south of London, was scheduled to land at 6:30 p.m. local time. There were 242 people on board at the time, conditions being optimal. The control tower received a distress call moments before the fatal accident, which caused a huge explosion and a huge cloud of smoke.