Bhoomi Chauhan's harrowing experience of missing her Air India flight by just ten minutes takes a chilling turn as the flight later crashed, claiming over 240 lives.
**Student's Brush with Fate: How Traffic Delayed One Passenger from Boarding a Tragic Flight**
**Student's Brush with Fate: How Traffic Delayed One Passenger from Boarding a Tragic Flight**
Traffic delays on her way to the airport resulted in a narrow miss for Bhoomi Chauhan, a student whose flight ended in disaster.
Bhoomi Chauhan's trip to India turned into an unimaginable story when she missed her Air India flight to London by merely ten minutes, a delay attributed to heavy traffic in Ahmedabad. The 28-year-old student from Bristol was returning home after a vacation in India, but her frustrations were short-lived when she learned that the flight she was scheduled to board, AI171, tragically crashed shortly after takeoff.
Chauhan arrived at Ahmedabad airport at 12:20 PM, just after boarding was set to commence. Despite having checked in online and holding a digital boarding pass for economy class seat 36G, she was denied boarding due to her late arrival. "We got very angry with our driver and left the airport in frustration," she explained. The realization of her close call sank in when, moments after leaving the airport, she received news of the crash, which killed all 241 people on board and several on the ground.
Her account, revealed in an interview with BBC's Gujarati service, emphasizes the heart-wrenching nature of survival by chance. "This is totally a miracle for me," she stated, shaking off the distress she initially felt when denied entry. Chauhan's experience highlights the unpredictability of travel, where a simple traffic jam can become a life-altering event.
The fateful flight took off as scheduled on Thursday but faced catastrophic failure, crashing into a residential area just 30 seconds post-departure. The aftermath involved extensive rescue operations, body identification efforts, and challenges for grieving families looking for closure.
As investigations continue into the cause of the crash, which affected numerous nationalities among its victims, Chauhan's story acts as a poignant reminder of life's uncertainties and the thin line that separates life from disaster.
