Air India Ahmedabad crash: All that’s left behind

“I was holding on to the last things Kamlesh touched. I want to keep these with me forever,” Savdhanbhai later tells The Indian Express, sitting on a charpoy at his home in Banaskantha’s Thavar village, 210 km from Ahmedabad.

From the crash site in Meghaninagar, Ahmedabad, Air India had recovered 22,000 personal belongings of passengers on the Boeing 787’s final flight from Ahmedabad to Gatwick. Of these, 8,000 were identified, traced back to individual passengers, and marked “associated”. The airlines then sent emails to the families, attaching photographs of each of these items, and saying they could visit the FRC and collect them as per their convenience.

Savdhanbhai’s son Kamlesh’s charred wedding album. (Express Photo by Bhupendra Rana)

Images of the remaining 14,000 pieces of ‘unidentified’ personal belongings have been uploaded to a portal running into 492 pages, which family members can browse to see if they find something familiar.

Each of these items on the portal is a pause. A baby’s white sweater with pine trees and red trucks. A blue ‘Dad to-be’ badge. Bunches of rakhi, one of those for a Superman fan. Prayer books and prayer beads. Spools of kite strings. A child’s toy. A ghungroo. A white sock, trimmed with lace. A white metal chain that once held a watch in place. Hair clip with blue stones. Bobby pins in plastic cases. A pink hair clip with a bow and flowing ribbons. Pink sunglasses with its Barbie paper tag intact. A blue hair comb. A white metal keychain with a pink rubber heart — on it, ‘Love’ and a couple holding hands. Spectacles twisted out of shape.

Each of these items on the portal is a pause.

As they set off to a distant land, many for the first time, they held their faith close. A white metal idol of Goddess Kali. A Ladoo Gopal idol. A brown sheet with lines from the Hanuman Chalisa. A book titled Ar Raheequl Makhtoom (a biography of Prophet Muhammad).

A tragedy, and Omar’s calls

On January 6, Savdhanbhai and his nephew Ishwar Chaudhary had travelled five hours from their village to get to the Family Returns Centre.

It was Savdhanbhai’s third visit in six months. The first was on June 12, 2025, when he and wife Ratniben dropped 26-year-old Kamlesh and his bride Dhapuben, 26, to the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. They had travelled over a 100 km on their way back and had reached Unjha in Mehsana district when they learnt about the crash. They turned the car around and sped to Ahmedabad, praying and hoping that their children would somehow luck out.

Kamlesh and Dhapuben were among the 241 who died as the Air India plane crashed into the BJ Medical College mess building, minutes after takeoff.

Kamlesh, who worked at a “fancy goods store”, had been in London since September 2022, visiting home two years later for his wedding on November 22, 2024. He had left for London soon after and returned a few months later to take Dhapuben with him.

Kamlesh and Dhapuben were among the 241 who died as the Air India plane crashed on June 12, 2025, minutes after takeoff from Ahmedabad airport. (Express Photo by Bhupendra Rana)

Sitting on the floor by the cot on which Savdhanbhai sat, his wife Ratniben breaks down as she recalls her last few days with her daughter-in-law. “Don’t work too hard, she would say. She even took me to the dawakhana because I wasn’t keeping well.”

The family says Kamlesh got a work visa two years ago and had hoped to start a small business in five years. He had wanted to take his younger brother Hitesh, 23, a Master’s student in agriculture business management from Banaskantha, along with him. “Now even the thought of that sends shivers down our spines,” says Kamlesh’s maternal uncle Devkaran Chaudhary.

Savdhanbhai says their lives “ended” the day Kamlesh and his bride died. But a sequel was to follow. Over the last six months, they now eagerly await a daily routine – a 3 pm call from Omar Ali, Kamlesh’s Pakistani co-worker at the fancy goods store in London.

Tannibhai, the owner of the store, had deputed Omar to call the Chaudharys every day and ask after them.

So now, Omar, who would call his parents in Lahore every day as he left home for work, now calls Kamlesh’s parents instead.

Their initial calls were short. Savdhanbhai would mouth full Gujarati sentences while Omar held on patiently — the father’s loss didn’t need a language. But soon, these turned into fluid conversations.

“We talk about everything, sometimes on video calls for over half an hour. This is how I learnt to speak Hindi. I still do not understand everything that Omar says since he uses Urdu words, but we understand each other’s feelings,” Savdhanbhai says.

He recently packed a can of home-made cow ghee and couriered it to Omar in London, the way he would for Kamlesh.

Speaking from London, Omar, who is in his 40s, says, “I consider Kamlesh’s parents my own. We talk about everything — what we ate, the weather, how my day went. I really wish I can meet them some day.”

Since Kamlesh’s death, the couple have decided to lead their lives the way their son would have wanted. “Before Kamlesh left, he had promised to buy us a car on Diwali. From the money we got as compensation, we bought a car last Diwali, just as he wished,” says Savdhanbhai.

Savdhanbhai also used a part of the compensation he got — Rs 25 lakh as interim relief, an ex-gratia of Rs 1 crore through the Tata Trusts, and Rs 4 lakh from the Gujarat CM Relief Fund — to repay the Rs 55 lakh that he had borrowed from family and friends to send Kamlesh to London in 2022.

“Kamlesh would keep telling me to think differently. That is how, two months ago, I started growing musk melon on a part of our 10-bigha land where we grow mustard and castor. We also sold three of our five buffaloes and nine of our 10 cows; he always said it was too much of a burden for us,” says Savdhanbhai, his face breaking into a smile every time he mentioned Kamlesh.

Savdhanbhai with his wife Ratniben at their home in Banaskantha’s Thavar village. (Express Photo by Bhupendra Rana)

A passport and a wallet

On January 5, Parth Patel, 31, got a call from Air India. From the debris, the airline had found personal belongings of his family members.

Memories he had buried came flooding back — the shock when he first heard of the crash, the denial, the grief, the thought of cousin Dhwani waiting for her parents to attend her convocation at Middlesex University in London, and how he had broken the news to her.

That day, Parth lost his mother Hemangi Patel (57), his uncle and Dhwani’s father Rajni Patel (51), and aunt Divyaben (47), all residents of Vasad town in Anand district.

Air India followed up its January 5 call with an email that held a few attachments – images of his mother’s old and new passports, and his uncle’s wallet. “My uncle’s handbag and a cap too were nearly intact, but nothing of my aunt’s was found,” says Parth.

The family also got a link to the portal of “unassociated” images. The exercise was emotionally sapping. Patel went through each of the 492 pages, searching and zooming in, as he hoped to find some part of what he had lost. He finally found his mother’s purse.

The families have a 45-day window that ends February 20 to go through the portal, click on the images they find familiar, place them in a ‘claim box’ and then connect with the airline for further processing of the claim.

From the crash site in Meghaninagar, Ahmedabad, Air India had recovered 22,000 personal belongings of passengers on the Boeing 787’s final flight from Ahmedabad to Gatwick.

An Air India spokesperson told The Indian Express, “We understand this is an emotional and difficult moment. Air India is committed to stand by every affected family, ensuring they receive support, care, and compassion as they navigate through this emotional process.”

The airline said it has tied up with a qualified external partner to process the return of the personal belongings with “utmost respect, dignity, and accuracy”.

“Our teams have spent considerable time cataloguing and documenting recoverable and returnable items. This was essential to ensure that families receive what truly belongs to them. Over 22,000 personal belongings have been preserved and listed with meticulous care. Information about these items has been shared with families through email and a dedicated website. Once families confirm the details, the belongings will be handed over physically in a manner that honours their grief and privacy. The process has been carried out after taking appropriate regulatory clearances,” the spokesperson added.

Degree certificates, Aadhaar

The 90 minutes that Anilbhai Patel spent at the Air India centre in Ahmedabad on January 6 were among the toughest in his life. As the staff removed a black cover off the desk, Anilbhai, from Nikol in Ahmedabad, sank into his chair, sobbing inconsolably as his son-in-law Harshad and colleague Rajeshbhai Vaghela tried to calm him.

In front of him lay documents and boarding passes that his son Harshit, 31, and daughter-in-law Pooja, 29, carried that day – two boarding passes from an earlier, September 15, 2023 flight to London, two 10-pound currency notes, their university marksheets and certificates, college degrees, and identity documents including Aadhaar, election cards, PAN cards, driving licence, a provisional UK driving licence, a residence permit, the receipt of a donation that they had made to a temple near Ahmedabad, bank statements, marriage certificate, passport-size photographs, debit cards, clothes, cosmetics. Everything except Harshit and Pooja themselves.

His eyes moist, Anilbhai says, “Harshit was my only son. He and Pooja had so many dreams.” (Express Photo by Bhupendra Rana)

The documents were in a folder in one of the two trolley bags that were recovered from the crash site, along with a handbag and two backpacks.

“Everything was intact. I just couldn’t gather the courage to see them for long or touch them,” says Anilbhai, 58, an autorickshaw driver until 2013, when an accident forced him to stop. He now works at a private outsourcing firm. His wife Uma died of breast cancer in 2017.

Anilbhai says it was Harshit and Pooja’s first visit home since they left for London in 2023. While Pooja completed her MSc in International Business and Human Resource Management from De Montfort University, Leicester, Harshit, who has an engineering diploma from Gujarat Technological University, was on a dependent visa. They had met as colleagues in an Ahmedabad company and got married on May 3, 2018.

His eyes moist, he says, “Harshit was my only son. He and Pooja had so many dreams and plans for their lives. Before leaving for London, Harshit had said that they would return to India in 2027 and settle down here. A night before flying, they even finalised a flat in Ahmedabad.”

‘Not all over again’

Some of the families The Indian Express spoke to said they were too emotionally drained to take back the belongings and that, “even for the sake of closure”, they wouldn’t be able to go through the pain all over again.

Krutik Patel, elder brother of Dirth Patel, a 24-year-old budding cricketer who died in the crash, is still to come to terms with how their lives changed “360 degrees”. Dirth was on his way back to London, after visiting his parents at Kapadvanj in Kheda district, when his flight crashed.

Krutik says Dirth was brilliant at both academics and cricket. While playing for Leeds Modernians Cricket Club, Dirth also completed his MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Huddersfield with a gold medal. He was all set to take up his new job as a research associate at the university from January 6, 2026.

Krutik himself played for Pool Cricket Club in Leeds as well as the Gujarat Cricket Association before moving to London five years ago. Since the accident, Krutik and his wife, who worked as an IT professional in London, have moved to Kheda to be by their parents’ side.

He says, “My father recently received an email from the airline informing us of the portal and saying we could look for Dirth’s belongings. We went through it for a while, but then decided not to search any further. Looking at my mother’s emotional state, we do not want her to go through the trauma all over again.”

Ahmedabad-based entrepreneur Trupti Soni knows that feeling all too well. She lost her brother Swapnil, 45, his wife Yoga, 44, and sister-in-law Alpa, 55, in the crash. They were to join Alpa’s husband Nishith in London and celebrate the end of his two-and-half-month-long road trip from Ahmedabad.

In the seven months since the crash, Soni has become a parent to Swapnil and Yoga’s sons, aged 19 and 9.

Early January, Trupti got an email from Air India informing her that a few personal belongings of her family members had been identified. Attached were photographs of a half-burnt passport and a purse with a tag that bore Alpa’s name.

The documents that Anilbhai’s son Harshit and daughter-in-law Pooja carried with them on the June 12, 2025, flight — almost all intact. (Express Photo by Bhupendra Rana)

“It is emotionally straining to go through all these charred and broken personal belongings,” Soni says. But she hopes to push herself, and book an appointment to appear at the FRC.

Sources told The Indian Express that of the 150-odd emails that have been sent to the family members of the victims, only around 90 have had a response and only around 25 have come to the FRC to collect the belongings. As of January 21, around 40 families had requested the airline to have the belongings couriered to them.

Voice texts, a final video

Back in Banaskantha, Savdhanbhai holds the phone speaker close to his ear. The phone now is a keeper of his memories. As he listens to voice texts from Kamlesh’s employer Tannibhai, referring to Kamlesh as his “right hand” and saying he was “like a younger brother” who helped the store increase its Gujarati clientele, Savdhanbhai’s heart swells and he smiles through his tears.

He pulls out a barely 30-second video from his phone. Shot from a distance outside Ahmedabad airport on June 12, it shows Kamlesh and Dhapuben clearing security at the entrance of the airport. Dhapuben is dressed in a traditional skirt, with a bright pink odhani covering her head and face, and Kamlesh is wearing a T-shirt and jeans.

“I rarely take videos but don’t know why I did that day. Maybe because I thought I should record my bahu’s first flight,” Savdhanbhai says.