A young couple with a small child, donning protective face shields and masks, covered in white bodysuits to keep infection at bay. And unmissable smiling faces — despite the safety shields — with hope in their eyes. This was the last family picture that Sharafu Pilassery posted to his Facebook. “Back to home,” he wrote, even as the trio boarded the plane, hopeful that they would soon reach Kerala. In the horrific crash that took place upon their flight landing at the Karipur airport in Kerala, Sharafu lost his life at the Baby Memorial Hospital on Friday.

A native of Kunnamangalam in Kozhikode, 35-year-old Sharafu was flying home with his wife Ameena Sherin and daughter Isa Fathima from Dubai. He had been working in the Gulf where he lives with his family — he had finally got tickets on the Vande Bharat repatriation flight to his hometown for a medical emergency.

According to officials, his wife Ameena is stable while his daughter Fathima is currently fighting for her life at the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital.

In a heart rending post on Facebook, Sharafu's friend, Shafi Parakkulam, who runs a hotel in Dubai recounted his last day in Dubai. 

“Before he left to Kerala, he came to my hotel to say goodbye. He was upset and said, ‘I don’t know why but I feel tensed about going back home,’. I almost feel like he had a premonition about what would happen. He gave me money and told me to use it to give food to those who are stranded and those who don’t have jobs,” Shafi wrote, recalling that Sharafu had previously too given money for the poor during the pandemic.

The young father succumbed in the horrific crash that has killed at least 17 passengers so far. The Air India Express IX 1344 flight reportedly landed at the Karipur airport amid bad weather and plunged 30 feet off the tabletop runway. Both the pilot and the co-pilot — Captain Deepak Vasant Sathe and First Officer Akhilesh Kumar — died in the resulting crash which split the plane into three. 

Edited by Manasa Rao.