The Albany Gazette - Survival and loss in Air India plane disaster

One man on board the plane, which was carrying 242 passengers and crew, miraculously survived the fiery crash on Thursday afternoon.

But that lone British citizen was the only story of escape from the jet.

"I saw my child for the first time in two years, it was a great time," said Anil Patel, whose son and daughter-in-law had surprised him with a visit from Britain.

"And now, there is nothing," he said, breaking down in tears. "Whatever the gods wanted has happened."

Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight bound for London's Gatwick airport, as well as 12 crew members.

At least 38 people were killed on the ground.

The nose and front wheel of the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner landed on a canteen building where medical students were having lunch.

Mohit Chavda, 25, a junior doctor in Ahmedabad, described how he escaped through choking black smoke after the plane smashed into the dining hall.

"There was almost zero visibility," Chavda said. "We were not able to see even who was sitting beside us -- so we just ran from there."

Scorch marks scar the buildings, where chunks of the plane were embedded into its walls.

- 'He caught fire' -

Among the dead was Vijay Rupani, 68, a senior member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party and former chief minister of Gujarat state.

But they also included teenager Akash Patni, who Indian media reported had been snoozing under a tree in the fierce heat of the day near his family's tea stall in Ahmedabad.

"He caught fire in front of my eyes," his mother Kalpesh Patni said, weeping as she talked to the Indian Express newspaper. "I won't be able to live without him."

Businessman Suresh Mistry, 53, said his daughter Kinal was a trained dancer, an excellent cook and a yoga enthusiast.

A chef in London, she had been visiting her family in India and postponed her flight to stay a few more days.

Mistry described the last time he spoke to her, when she called to say the plane was about to take off and he could head back home without any worry.

He said he couldn't stop thinking about how, if she had stuck to her original plan, "she would have been alive".

(Y.Harris--TAG)