A day after the miraculous escape of more than 200 passengers onboard an Air India jumbo which caught fire in Mumbai, fresh details are emerging of the incident. The pilots of the plane have been taken off the duty roster pending an inquiry.
From some accounts, the pilots and the cabin crew took the right decisions at the right time, ensuring the speedy evacuation of the jetliner. But for the passengers on board it was a harrowing experience, one which will not be easily forgotten.
Chandrashekhar Iyer, a passenger on the jinxed Air India flight AI 829 is relieved to be back home, safe with his family. It's one flight he or his family won't ever forget.
"The experience was traumatic. It was like coming out from the jaws of death," Iyer said.
As long as he stayed in the plane Iyer was disturbed, his wife distraught.
"I heard passengers shouting that there was smoke and fire. There was panic as 200 people trying to get out. There were children, the aged all falling over each other. You can imagine the scurrying," he added.
A first class passenger, Iyer was so shaken that he refused to take Air India's alternative flight to Riyadh.
"First the delay and then this. I told him 'Dad enough just come back'," his daughter Priyanka Iyer said.
Iyer is not sure he wants to fly Air India again. All he knows that this was a miraculous escape.
