It’s a year since a London-bound Air India flight crashed onto a medical college campus in western India, killing 260 people. Sitaben Patni still shudders at the mere mention of the tragedy.
Patni was severely burnt as debris from the aircraft wiped out the tea shop she ran on the college’s campus – but that is not why her body trembles and her face is stained by tears whenever she remembers that day. It’s because recalling the disaster brings back the horrifying memory of watching her 12-year-old son burn to death under a section of the crashed aircraft’s wing.
