Twenty-eight-year-old Muhammed Fasil took the Air India flight from Dubai to Kerala on Friday in order to return home for his wedding. Mohammed Saleel, aged 29, was taking the flight since the company he worked for asked him to go on leave for six months. Also on the plane were a family of three, including a pregnant woman and a four-year-old child.
They were among the 189 passengers on board the Vande Bharat Mission (repatriation mission during COVID-19 by the Union Ministry of External Affairs) flight that crashed at the Calicut International Airport on Friday evening. The flight from Dubai to Karipur airport in Malappuram, Kerala, was only 30 feet above the ground when it overshot the tabletop runway and came crashing down to the airport.
Aged between one and 68 years, there were a number of children and senior citizens among the passengers. There were visitors, workers, professionals and students.
Stranded tourists, people who lost their jobs, those who came on visit visas with infants, others whose visa expired, one person who was to get married were caught in the tragic crash. Quite a few felt it safer to come to Kerala during the pandemic and be home with families. These are the reasons they listed to head home.
Mufeeda, aged 29, needed to settle back home as she felt it not safe to be in Dubai with a kid. Purushothaman, aged 51, wrote that he wanted to leave Dubai because of increasing cases of COVID-19. Some wanted to return home because of medical emergencies.
Many of the passengers on the repatriation flight listed job loss as the reason to fly home. Abdul Rafee, 39-years-old, a professional, lost his job and had his visa cancelled. The visas of his wife and kids had already expired.
Abdul Kareem, 36, came for the annual leave. Shafeed, 29, only said, “want to go home.”