A male same-sex couple is believed to have died aboard the Air India plane that crashed minutes after leaving the Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday morning local time. All but one of the 243 passengers aboard the Boeing airplane died; the cause of the crash remains unknown.
Jamie Meek, 45, and his husband Fiongal Greenlaw, 39, filmed a video of themselves discussing their Indian vacation just hours before boarding the flight to return to London’s Gatwick Airport, The Standard reported.
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Their bagel shop has been called “a safe haven where acceptance, love, and joy thrives.”
“Goodbye India,” Greenlaw said in the video before asking Meek, “What’s your biggest take away Jamie?” Meek responds, “I don’t know,” and Greenlaw laughed and said, “Yeah fascinating. Great. Thanks for your contribution.”
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The couple run the Wellness Foundry, a health and wellness lifestyle company that offers psychic readings, tarot, reiki, and yoga in the English cities of London and Ramsgate. The couple began dating in 2019 and married in various ceremonies.
A 40-year-old British national of Indian origin, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, is reportedly the only survivor of the crash. He jumped out of the airplane seconds before it crashed. He is reportedly not very badly injured and could be released from the hospital in a few days.
“Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly,” Vishwash told The Hindustan Times.
Dr. Rajnish Patel, professor and head of surgery at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, told CNN, “He is not able to give me the complete picture of the event that happened sequentially. What he says is that at one moment there was a lot … there was some kind of noise. And the other moment he was out. And then when he got up, he was surrounded by dead bodies and all.”
The 242-person flight was reportedly carrying 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, 7 Portuguese nationals and 1 Canadian national, CNN reported.
India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has pledged to formally investigate the crash. The plane crashed into the BJ Medical College and Hospital hostel. It’s unclear how many people died in those two locations from the crash, but it’s believed the number could be up to 48 individuals.
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