Ahmedabad plane crash: Woman misses ill-fated Air India flight by 10 minutes due to traffic

Bhoomi Chauhan missed her flight due to a ten-minute traffic delay. These ten minutes saved her life.

Bhoomi Chauhan

Ahmedabad: Ten minutes made the difference between life and death for Bhoomi Chauhan, a passenger who missed the ill-fated Air India flight that crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad with 242 people on board. Chauhan, who had returned to India for a vacation after two years, was scheduled to fly back to London on the same flight that later turned into a fireball mid-air. Her name was on the passenger list.

On the day of departure, she left for the airport but was delayed by heavy traffic in Ahmedabad. By the time she reached the terminal, the boarding gate had closed. Despite pleading with airport authorities, she was denied entry. At around 1:30 pm, Chauhan left the airport, unaware of the tragedy that would soon unfold.

"I still can’t speak... my body is trembling," she told Asianet News. Visibly shaken, Chauhan said her mind felt blank and she was struggling to process what had happened. She narrowly escaped becoming one of the many victims of the disaster. Her missed flight, which initially felt like a setback, turned out to be a life-saving twist of fate.