Residents of Meghaninagar vividly remember the explosion that shook the neighbourhood on the afternoon of June 12, 2025.
An Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London had crashed into the hostel blocks of B J Medical College. A massive fire broke out, sending clouds of smoke into the sky.
A year after the disaster, the damaged hostel complex, its walls blackened by fire, awaits demolition. The Gujarat government has sanctioned funds for the construction of a new hostel at the same site.
The deserted buildings, once home to budding doctors, serves as a stark reminder of the crash that claimed 260 lives — 241 passengers and crew members on board the aircraft and 19 persons on the ground.
For the survivors and kin of the victims, life has not returned to normal.
Among them is Sitaben Patni, who ran a tea stall opposite the crash site. On the day of the crash, her 15-year-old son Akash came to the stall to hand her the lunchbox, and then lay down on the ground.
Minutes later, the aircraft came down, and he was engufled in flames.
“I ran to save my son, but the fire had already reached him. I tried everything to get to him, but could not pass through the flames," Sitaben recalled.
She herself suffered severe burn injuries on her hands.
“I ran towards the road and kept shouting that my son was sleeping there and begged people to save him," she recounts with teary eyes.
Inside the hostel, students were having lunch, resting, or preparing for classes.
The crash triggered a huge fire. LPG cylinders in the hostel mess exploded, adding fuel to the inferno.
Several students found themselves trapped inside the building. Some of them managed to escape through windows. Others ran through smoke-filled corridors as the fire spread rapidly.
Of the 19 persons who died on the ground, four were MBBS students staying in the hostel.
“Once the dust settled, we went inside and rushed the injured students to the Civil Hospital. Then the fire brigade and police took over the search and rescue operation," a student recalled.
Local residents also rushed to the spot to help. Ignoring the danger posed by the fire and explosions, many entered the hostel to rescue the injured. Some helped carry victims to ambulances and private vehicles.
One passenger survived miraculously and made global headlines.
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, seated near an emergency exit, found himself alive amid the wreckage of the plane, to be able to stand up and walk away. His brother, travelling with him on the same flight, did not survive.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Ahmedabad the following day and met injured victims, including Ramesh.
On Friday, the first anniversary of the crash, students of BJ Medical College organised a prayer meeting on the Civil Hospital campus to pay tributes to the victims.
Students, doctors and kin of the victims took part in the prayer meeting. Later, they planted 260 saplings in memory of the 260 people who lost their lives.
The blackened hostel building stood silently in the background.
A new hostel may soon replace it, but the memories of June 12, 2025, would remain alive among the survivors, rescuers and families who lost their loved ones in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.
