A woman missed the doomed Air India flight after she got stuck in traffic and arrived at the airport 10 minutes late.
The Air India flight AI171, carrying 242 passengers and crew from Ahmedabad to London, crashed into a residential area on June 12, claiming the lives of 241 people on board. Only one passenger survived.
Bhumi Chouhan, from Baruch in Gujarat, was supposed to be on that flight. She missed it by just ten minutes — and that twist of fate saved her life.
“The flight was scheduled for take-off at 1:10PM and I had to check in by 12:10 I was stuck in traffic and by the time I reached the airport the check-in had closed,” she told India Today.
“I reached the airport at around 12:20PM and rushed for the check-in counter. However, I was refused check-in for being late,” she added.
Chouhan was on her way to London to meet her husband and was devastated when she was denied boarding.
“Initially, I was very sad about not being able to board the flight. However, as I was returning home, I learned that the flight I was scheduled to board had crashed,” she said.
“I consider myself lucky and perhaps, there were some good deeds which saved me. I consider this as my re-birth. However, the next thing that struck me was the disastrous nature of the accident which claimed so many innocent lives.”
On board that same flight were Jamie Ray Greenlaw-Meek and Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek, founders of The Wellness Foundry, a spiritual wellness brand based in Vauxhall, London.
The couple had just finished a ten-day retreat in India and shared a cheerful video at the airport just before boarding. In it, Fiongal smiled at the camera and said: “We are at the airport, just boarding, goodbye India.”
Jamie stood beside him and joked about the upcoming 10-hour flight. In another video posted to their Instagram, the couple reflected on their trip: “We really have been on quite a journey and then just spending the last night here in this most amazing hotel, we’ve just had the most delicious Thali food.”
“It was the perfect way to round up the trip,” Jamie added.
They described the experience as “magical” and promised their followers a full vlog of the “mind-blowing things” they'd encountered.
Tragically, that video would be their final message.
The crash has left Jamie’s family devastated.
His brother Nick Meek, a caretaker from Birmingham, shared how they were eagerly awaiting the couple’s return: “We were expecting him home tonight. He should have landed at 6:30PM and then driven up for about 11 to get his dog who is staying with our Mum,” Nick told The Independent.
“She is not in a good way. It is all very raw for her at the moment. It’s a lot to take in and we only heard this news a couple of hours ago.”