Air India Crash: Why this one seemed and felt different

I was largely following the news yesterday. Already, there was a lot of coverage of the story by multiple outlets but something inside me just didn’t  make me feel right about writing about this tragedy. An Air India flight crashed en route from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick minutes after takeoff. In the past, we’ve covered stories about airline accidents but this one felt different. Why was the Air India crash different? It hit closer to home.

Air India Crash: Heartbreaking Stories

I grew up in Mumbai and spent most of my formative years up until my twenties, before moving to the US. While I spent a lot of my childhood traveling around India, I developed a fondness for its diversity, be it culinary, lingual, sartorial or cultural. This one hit me differently because it hit so close to home, barely a 10 hour drive from where I grew up.

Heartbreaking Stories

I won’t belabor points that have been already covered. We’ve all read the intricate details about the plane type, the make and the number of people on board. However, for now, I just want to focus on the people.

While sifting through the news and doom scrolling on social media, I came across this really tragic story and it just hit me very differently once I read this Firstpost article. Here’s an excerpt from the article.

A family of five from Rajasthan is among those who died in the tragic Air India flight crash in Ahmedabad. Dr Pratik Joshi and his wife, Dr Kaumi Vyas, were travelling with their three kids to start a new life in London. Their selfie, clicked just before the takeoff, has become a tragic reminder of a future that was never to be

The doctor couple from Banswara and their three young children were among the 241 people who lost their lives in the devastating crash of Air India Flight AI171.

Just hours before the unimaginable happened, the family of five had taken a cheerful selfie in the airplane, radiating hope, love, and excitement for the journey ahead. That photo, now widely shared online, has become a haunting reminder of a future that was never to be.

In our world of travel blogging, we write and talk about corporate travel like it’s some normal daily commute. Little do we know how fickle life can be. Imagine working in London, saving up money and finally deciding to move with your family so that you can stay together, only to see everything blow up in flames, literally and figuratively.

As kids, we’ve seen our parents work hard to build a good future. As parents, we want to do the same for our kids. Dr. Pratik was doing the same thing, he almost thought his dream had come true, but the glee and excitement was soon to be incinerated, turned to ashes, blown up in a smoke of melancholy.

The Fickleness of Life

Amid all the gloom, we saw a silver lining as the person sitting in 11A miraculously escaped alive. What were the odds? But that reminds us, life is fickle. Unfortunately, the rest of the passengers were not as lucky as the one seated in 11A. And then, there’s this story of Bhoomi Chauhan. She missed her flight by a thin margin of 10 minutes, just because she was stuck in traffic on the way to the airport. 10 minutes? That’s the difference between life and death. That’s how close the margins can be.

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