Bhoomi Chauhan 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.
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.
But after arriving at the airport less than an hour before departure, airline staff turned her away.
“We got very angry with our driver and left the airport in frustration,” she recalls. “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.”
