Families of those killed in last year’s Air India plane crash gathered at the site on Friday to mark the anniversary of the disaster, still awaiting answers about its cause.
On June 12 2025, a Boeing 787 crashed into a medical college shortly after take-off in India’s western city of Ahmedabad, killing 260 people in the deadliest air disaster for a decade.
Indian authorities are expected to issue an interim report in the coming days, a source of frustration to the victims’ relatives, who had been expecting a final disclosure.
Suresh Patni, a driver, came to the site where the plane exploded in a ball of flame, engulfing his teenage son Akash at his family’s tea stall.
“We are here today only to remember him on his first death anniversary,” Patni told AFP.
“He was a good student and could have done really well for himself.”
Patni commemorated Akash with a framed photograph and a life-size cutout, decorated with flowers and surrounded by scattered rose petals and lit lamps.
The crash killed 241 people on board the plane and 19 people on the ground.
Fragments of bags, clothes, and a melted shoe lie half-buried in the charred earth at the site, alongside dead trees with burned trunks.
“It pains us when we hear an aeroplane flying overhead,” Patni said, adding that their home was near the flight path of the airport in Ahmedabad, the main city in the state of Gujarat.
“Our house is still at the same location,” he said. “But we don’t feel like staying here… we are reminded of the same faces and memories.”
‘Important for closure’
Nearby, a woman wept as she embraced a framed picture of her deceased relatives, while another family scattered rose petals at the ruins of the hostel in honour of their son.
Relatives of the victims had expected a final report by Friday to explain why the disaster happened.
But with investigations continuing, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is expected to issue only an interim report.
As required by international law, the AAIB published a preliminary report a month after the disaster.
