'Traffic saved me': Student missed Air India flight by just 10 minutes

Bhoomi Chauhan remembers being aggravated and frustrated. Bumper-to-bumper postulation had delayed her car travel to Ahmedabad airdrome - truthful overmuch truthful that she missed her Air India formation to London Gatwick by conscionable 10 minutes.

Ms Chauhan, a concern medication pupil who lives successful Bristol with her husband, had been visiting occidental India for a holiday.

The 28-year-old was owed to alert location connected AI171 connected Thursday, which crashed soon aft take-off, sidesplitting 241 radical connected committee and much connected the ground.

But aft arriving astatine the airdrome little than an hr earlier departure, hose unit turned her away.

"We got precise aggravated with our operator and near the airdrome successful frustration," she recalls. "I was precise disappointed.

"We near the airdrome and stood astatine a spot to portion beverage and aft a while, earlier leaving... we were talking to the question cause astir however to get a refund for the ticket.

"There, I got a telephone that the level had gone down."

Speaking to the BBC's Gujrati service, she adds: "This is wholly a occurrence for me."

Ms Chauhan says she arrived astatine the airdrome astatine 12:20 PM section time, 10 minutes aft boarding was owed to commence.

Her integer boarding pass, seen by BBC News, shows her assigned to system people spot 36G.

But contempt having checked successful online, she says hose unit would not let her to implicit the process astatine the airport.

She had travelled from Ankleshwar - 201km (125 miles) southbound of Ahmedabad - earlier being held up successful Ahmedabad's metropolis centre traffic.

Ms Chauhan says: "When I missed the flight, I was dejected. Only happening that I had successful caput was, 'If I had started a small early, I would person boarded the plane'.

"I requested hose unit to let maine wrong arsenic I americium lone 10 minutes [late]. I told them that I americium the past rider and truthful delight let maine to committee the plane, but they did not let me."

The Gatwick formation took disconnected arsenic scheduled connected Thursday afternoon, but appeared to conflict to summation altitude and crashed astir 30 seconds into the flight.

The level deed a residential area, sidesplitting 241 passengers and 12 unit members. At slightest 8 radical connected the crushed are truthful acold known to person died.

One passenger, British nationalist Vishwashkumar Ramesh, survived the clang and was treated successful infirmary for injuries.

Indian, Portuguese and Canadian nationals were besides connected board.

Among the 53 Britons to person been killed were a family who lived successful Gloucester, 3 members of the aforesaid household who lived successful London, and a married couple who ran a spiritual wellness centre successful the capital.

Emergency services and officials worked precocious into Thursday nighttime and into Friday to wide debris and hunt for answers.

Additional reporting by Sajid Patel