Teen witness who filmed tragic Ahmedabad Air India plane crash grapples with trauma

Ahmedabad: What began as a simple curiosity to see an aeroplane up close turned into a trauma for 17-year-old Aryan Asari, whose mobile phone video of the ill-fated Air India flight AI-171 became a viral sensation.

Shaken and deeply disturbed, Aryan spoke to reporters before returning to his home village in Gujarat’s Aravalli district, 130 km from Ahmedabad, and expressed hope that he would escape the images of the crash he accidentally recorded.

After reaching his father’s rented house in Meghaninagar around 12:30 pm on Thursday, located between the airport and the crash site, he learned that aircraft often flew low overhead. Intrigued, he headed to the terrace, eager for a never-before-seen perspective.

Aryan, a Class 12 student from Shamlaji taluka, arrived in Ahmedabad on June 12 to buy textbooks for the upcoming school year.

“I had just reached my father’s house around 12:30 p.m. and went up to the rooftop after learning that planes fly low,” Aryan, who spoke in broken Hindi and Gujarati, said.

“I was recording a video of a plane flying low out of curiosity because I had never seen one from such a close distance,” he added.

His recording turned into a horrifying eyewitness account.

“When the plane started descending, I thought it was going to land on the other side of the airport. Then it crashed and burst into flames right in front of my eyes. It was terrifying,” he told reporters, the memory clearly affecting him.

Aryan’s father, who retired from the Army, had recently taken up a security guard job with the Ahmedabad Metro, which led him to this rented accommodation in Meghaninagar – a location where the tragedy took place.