Grief lingers at Air India crash site as families await answers

Families of victims of last year’s Air India crash gathered at the site on Friday to mark the anniversary of the disaster, still awaiting clear answers about its cause.

On June 12, 2025, a Boeing 787 crashed into a medical college shortly after takeoff in the western city of Ahmedabad, killing 260 people in the deadliest aviation disaster in a decade.

Indian authorities are expected to release an interim report in the coming days, a timeline that has frustrated relatives who had been expecting a final account of what went wrong.

Suresh Patni, a driver, returned to the site where the aircraft erupted into flames, engulfing his teenage son Akash at a family tea stall.

“We are here today only to remember him on his first death anniversary,” Patni told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“He was a good student and could have done really well for himself.”

Patni commemorated Akash with a framed photograph and a life-size cutout decorated with flowers, scattered rose petals and lit lamps.

The crash killed 241 people on board the plane and 19 people on the ground.

Fragments of bags, clothing and a melted shoe lay half-buried in the charred earth at the site, alongside dead trees with burned trunks.

“It pains us when we hear an airplane flying overhead,” Patni said, adding that their home was near the flight path of Ahmedabad’s airport, the main city in the state of Gujarat.

“Our house is still at the same location,” he said. “But we don’t feel like staying here. We are reminded of the same faces and memories.”

Importance of closure

Nearby, a woman wept as she embraced a framed picture of her relatives, while another family scattered rose petals at the ruins of the hostel in honor of their son.

Relatives of victims had expected a final report by Friday explaining why the disaster happened.

But with investigations continuing, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is expected to issue only an interim report.

As required by international rules, the AAIB published a preliminary report a month after the disaster.

That 15-page document said fuel supply to the jet’s engines was cut off moments before impact, raising questions about possible pilot error.

It also included a conversation between the captain and co-pilot about the fuel supply being cut off, two brief sentences that sparked theories of pilot suicide.

The report was met with strong criticism.

It did not say why the fuel switches were turned off, whether due to pilot action or a malfunction.

Relatives of the victims are meeting at a conference organized by lawyers, along with aviation and air safety experts in Ahmedabad.

They are due to hold a candlelight vigil after sunset.

“Why are authorities taking so much time to assess the crash?” asked Nilesh Joshi, whose wife, Kaminiben Nilesh Joshi, was killed while returning home to Britain after attending a wedding in India.

“The release of the report is important for closure for people like me who have lost their loved ones,” Joshi, who traveled from London for the conference, told AFP.

Only one passenger survived, Briton Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who has said he has “significant psychological scars” following the crash in which his brother died and “constant unanswered questions” about why it happened.

Vijay Sengal still remembers the deafening sound when the plane came down.

Sengal, a sanitation inspector at a nearby hospital, was one of the first to try to rescue the injured.

“When we tried to pick up bodies, the body wouldn’t come. Instead, it was someone’s hand, someone’s leg,” he said.

He said he, like many others, avoids the area after dark, fearing it is haunted.

“We believe in gods and also in souls,” he said. “Those passengers sitting in the plane, maybe they still have some work unfinished, their last wish still unfulfilled.”

DAILYSABAH