A mother who died in the Air India plane crash had been reluctant to travel and feared leaving her young son behind for the first time, a colleague has said.
Abdhiben Patel, known as Abdhi, 40, was killed when flight AI171 crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad on Thursday.
She had flown to India just two weeks earlier to care for her elderly mother, but was hesitant to make the trip and leave her eight-year-old son behind.
“She didn’t want to go,” said Atif Karim, 45, her colleague and close friend at Zone Beauty Studio in Northampton.
“She told me, ‘I just don’t like being away from him’. It was her first time leaving him, and she was very nervous.”
“She wasn’t excited,” he added.
“It was a sense of duty. Her mum was unwell, but you could tell it was weighing on her.”
Mr Karim, a father of two, said recent tensions between India and Pakistan, which led to flight cancellations and uncertainty, had added to Mrs Patel’s worries.
“All the flights were getting cancelled,” he said. “It didn’t feel like the right time.”
Because her husband Pankaj worked night shifts, Mrs Patel was inseparable from their son Meer, he said.
“She kept saying how shy and reserved he is, how attached they were,” he added.
“She was totally devoted to him – her entire world revolved around him.”
Mrs Patel had planned to return to work on Saturday.
The day before the crash, she had messaged Mr Karim to check in about a task and offer to help finish it remotely.
“She said, ‘Do you want me to finish that?’ and later, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort it,’” he said. “That was the last I heard.”
Originally from Gujarat, she moved to the UK in 2012 and joined the salon in 2016.
She worked her way up over the years and had been managing the business for the last three.
“She was the most diligent, reliable worker I’ve ever had,” Mr Karim said. “But more than that, she was our friend.”
“She was bubbly, kind, always smiling – she had a way of putting people at ease and always took a genuine interest in their lives.”
“She got on with everyone and left a real mark on the people she worked with and the customers she served.
“Yesterday, we had people coming in and crying their eyes out.”
Inside the salon, he said the mood has changed, Mr Karim said.
“There’s no music playing anymore,” he said.
“The staff are devastated. My colleague burst into tears when she walked in.
“Everyone’s just heartbroken.”
Mrs Patel’s husband and son are now in India, where efforts are still ongoing to identify victims and return remains to grieving families.
Authorities have since begun handing over remains after identifying some through DNA testing.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner had crashed into a residential area shortly after take-off, killing 241 people on board and at least 29 on the ground.
Only one passenger – a 40-year-old British man – survived.
A fundraiser has since been launched to support Mrs Patel’s grieving husband and son.
