‘Traffic saved me’: Indian woman avoids Air India crash as she misses flight by 10 minutes

Bhoomi Chauhan would also have been on board Air India’s crashed AI171 plane, had she not been delayed by just 10 minutes, the BBC reports.

Ms. Chauhan, a business administration student who lives in Bristol with her husband, had been visiting western India for a holiday.

The 28-year-old was due to fly home on AI171 on Thursday, which crashed shortly after take-off, killing 241 people on board and more on the ground.

She remembers being angry and frustrated. Bumper-to-bumper traffic had delayed her car journey to Ahmedabad airport – so much so that she missed her Air India flight to London Gatwick by just 10 minutes. As a result, after arriving at the airport less than an hour before departure, airline staff turned her away.

Ms. Chauhan says: “When I missed the flight, I was dejected. Only thing that I had in mind was, ‘If I had started a little early, I would have boarded the plane’. We got very angry with our driver and left the airport in frustration. I was very disappointed. We left the airport and stood at a place to drink tea and after a while, before leaving… we were talking to the travel agent about how to get a refund for the ticket. There, I got a call that the plane had gone down.”

Speaking to the BBC’s Gujarati service, she adds: “This is totally a miracle for me.”