Residents of Meghaninagar, a densely populated area close to the Ahmedabad airport, are used to seeing airplanes from close proximity. Many of them would often joke that if only they could jump a little higher, they might touch the wheels of a plane as it flew overhead. All this changed on Thursday afternoon.
Moments after an Air India plane with 242 people onboard crashed in the locality, its parts slamming into a cluster of hostel buildings housing medical college students, a sentiment was common among most of the residents: Had the plane swerved a little to the left, or the right, the damage on the ground would have been colossal.
“I think the pilots saved us all. If it wasn’t for them putting the aircraft on the ground next to the hostels, the plane could have crashed into our building,” says a scientist at the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) located in the area. A number of scientists here escaped being hit by burning debris by mere seconds.
The campus of the NIOH, which comes under the aegis of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), is located right across the road from the buildings, which the AI 171 hit. Many other government buildings, like the former campus of Raksha Shakti University, a 1,200-bed hospital, and the State Reserve Police (SRP) camp, are in the vicinity.
“A little to the left and our society would have been crushed, a little to the right and it would have hit the SRP’s Ghoda Camp… a bit of an early descent would have taken the plane into the campus of the Military Hospital and NIOH, while a little delay would have sent the aircraft straight into the 1,200-bed hospital in the Medicity campus beyond it,” says a shopkeeper, requesting anonymity.
The “society” he is referring to is a closely packed complex of four-storey, run-down buildings that come under the Government Housing Board in Meghaninagar, which was built for mill workers in 1961 when the city was referred to as the “Manchester of the East” for being a textile hub. The residents say they have not had a moment’s rest since the afternoon of June 12 with people crowding the premises to catch a “better glimpse” of the plane lodged in the hostel building in front of them.
On Friday, 22-year-old Dharmish Patni, a resident, was seen guarding the door leading to the terrace as a group of young men, soft drink bottles in hand, stood outside. “Since yesterday, around 1,500 to 2,000 people have come, prompting us to take such measures. While everyone wants to see the plane, what nobody understands is that this 64-year-old building cannot take such a high load. We escaped the crash, now we don’t want to be crushed under the building,” says Dharmish.
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The tail of the plane has since been removed from the hostel building.
At the NIOH, another scientist describes the seconds after the disaster on Thursday. “After a massive explosion, a wall of fire and smoke rushed towards us… We had been standing just 2-3 feet from the section of the wall that was breached by the flying debris of what, we learnt later, was a passenger aircraft. As we ran back, within two or three seconds, metal parts came flying into the compound.” All the scientists that The Indian Express spoke to requested anonymity.
In a mobile phone video of the first moments after the crash, capturing the raging fire and accompanying thick, black fumes, someone could be heard asking a watchman, “Kis wajah se lagi hai aag, pata chala kuchh? (any idea what could be the reason behind this fire?)”. “Plane gira (an airplane fell),” the guard replies.
One of the scientists The Indian Express spoke to said he initially thought it was a chartered plane. “In today’s time, you simply cannot think that a passenger plane would crash.”
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Residents of the housing society, too, say that, at first, they had no idea that the fire was caused by a plane crash. “We heard a huge blast. I didn’t understand what was happening but when we saw the massive fire and smoke, we evacuated everyone from the building since we didn’t know if more blasts were in the offing,” says Darshan Patni (32), a second-floor resident.
A “massive blast” is also how another NIOH scientist describes what he heard that afternoon. “I was standing in the corner of the compound with two of my colleagues when we heard it. We saw one of the wings of the aircraft fall near the SRP camp. There were fumes, heat, and a wave of all of this was coming right towards us. We managed to escape just in time.”
Like the students of the BJ Medical College, NIOH scientists were also having lunch at the time of the crash. “Five of us were having our food on the third floor. We heard a big explosion that shook our entire building. We thought it was a major earthquake that had led to a transformer blowing out. I went to the window and saw the plane,” says a scientist.
Another scientist claims he saw a “decapitated head” in front of the main gate. “We put a cloth on top of it… Several charred bodies were littered inside the shaded garden portion of the NIOH compound. The bamboo trees there also caught fire…”
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An NIOH staffer, one of the first responders, says, “The airport’s fire team was the first to arrive. Soon, city fire department vehicles, police, ambulance, everyone arrived. By 2 pm, there were so many rescuers that the site was in a state of utter chaos.”
The NIOH being a laboratory came in handy after the crash. “Most of the bodies were so badly burnt that there was no skin left, only muscle and tissue. Many of the first responders didn’t even have the time to put on safety gear. Our staff went to our labs, got gloves, and distributed them. It was the least we could do,” says a staff member.
Many residents in the Meghaninagar area say they did not catch any sleep that night. On Friday evening, as Darshan and his son Yogesh sat on a worn-out sofa on their terrace, chatting with their neighbours, an aircraft flew over the building. Everyone instinctively looked up. For these residents, living beside an airport would never be the same again.
