Time has a cruel way of moving forward while leaving the human heart entirely behind. Exactly one year ago, the sky over Ahmedabad became the stage for a nightmare that would forever alter the landscape of Indian aviation and shatter hundreds of lives in a single, catastrophic flash.
When the aircraft came down into the hostel complex, it didn’t just destroy a plane; it instantly tore a crater through the futures, dreams, and sanctuaries of families both in the air and on the ground.
Today, the physical wreckage has long been cleared, the frantic wail of sirens has faded from the neighbourhood, and the news cycle has moved on. Yet, for those left behind, the calendar turning marks no real passage of time. For them, the world remains permanently frozen in the smoke and chaos of that afternoon-a collective trauma that has transitioned from public shock into a deeply lonely, agonizing daily reality.
We uncover the story of a family completely torn apart by the disaster. They were supposed to be thousands of feet in the air, flying toward the embrace of a son who had built a dream life for them in the United Kingdom. Instead, Rajnikant and Pushpaben Darji-an elderly couple from Kheda who had overcome a lifetime of hardship to educate their son as a doctor-met their end on the concrete of Ahmedabad.
One year after the catastrophic crash, their relatives stand weeping at the quiet campus complex, their hands folded in prayer on the very ground that shattered a family’s long-awaited reunion. This was a couple that had never stepped foot outside Ahmedabad before that fateful day; their very first journey was meant to be a celebration of a son’s gratitude, but it ended in an inferno, proving that the cruellest thing about a tragedy is how it targets the most innocent of dreams.
Rajnikantbhai and Pushpaben spent their entire lives doing intense hard work to raise their son and support his medical education. In a twist of cruel irony, their son graduated to become a successful doctor from the very same campus medical network where the crash occurred.
After completing his medical journey, the son shifted to the UK, where he made a prominent name for himself and excelled in his career. Earning incredibly well, he decided it was finally time to reward his parents for their decades of sacrifice by calling Rajnikantbhai and Pushpaben to the UK to live a life of comfort with him. He took care of every single arrangement, meticulously booking their flight tickets and securing their cabs. Tragically, the elderly parents’ very first plane journey ended up becoming their last.
Today, marking the painful one-year anniversary of the tragedy, the grieving family members returned to the crash site to offer emotional prayers for the departed souls. Standing on the ground where the plane went down, the family broke down in tears, sharing their profound sense of emptiness with NDTV. Speaking through tears during an exclusive talk with our team, Pramodbhai, the brother of Rajnikantbhai, shared the immense depth of the family’s ongoing grief.
In an emotional conversation, Pramodbhai expressed the family’s devastation, saying, “With lot of hardship both my brother and sister-in-law raised their son. Unhone apni zindagi mein bohot takleefein dekhi hain, bohot sangharsh kiya hai (They have seen so many troubles in their life, they struggled a lot). They faced so much difficulties but made him doctor. Unka beta aaj itna kaamyab hai, UK mein settled hai (Their son is so successful today, he is settled in the UK), and the very first thing he wanted to do was call his parents to the UK to live with him.”
“My brother and sister-in-law never went out of Ahmedabad. Unhone kabhi plane mein safar nahi kiya tha, yeh unka pehla safar tha (They had never traveled in a plane, this was their first journey) and they were going abroad. Never knew their first journey would be last journey. Humara poora parivar bikhar gaya hai, hum sab poori tarah toot chuke hain (Our entire family is shattered, we are completely broken). We are here for prayers today,” he added.
