Author: Anjali Singh
12 November 1996
Charkhi Dadri Haryana
The accidents are one of the ten largest air accidents in the world. This was the biggest air crash in India.
“First there was a dangerous sound which shook the whole village. Doors and windows of houses broke, and pieces of glass were scattered everywhere. People thought it was an earthquake and came out of their houses in fear.
Most of the journalists who covered the incident commented on the smell of burning bodies and said that body parts were scattered in every field nearby and they were walking on them in the dark mistaking them to be soil or cow dung.
When the morning came, they realized how horrific the accident really was.
Bodies, watches, jewellery, spectacles, saris, spice packets and toys were scattered everywhere.
The scattered bodies and their belongings told the story of their joys and sorrows.
dolls, teddy bears and bags lying there.”
There were some half dead bodies, some of which had their upper parts missing, some had their lower parts missing and some bodies were burnt.
After falling rapidly from a height of thousands of feet, a 20 feet deep crater was formed where the engine of the Saudi plane fell.
“When the bodies were taken to the Charkhi Dadri hospital, they were dumped on snow piles in the hospital corridors and wards, leading to a lot of bleeding.” Since it was difficult to preserve the bodies at the local hospital and many were burnt or disintegrated beyond recognition, they needed to be cremated or buried immediately.
A Hindu organisation demanded that the bodies of the unidentified bodies be cremated according to Hindu rites. Muslims opposed this.
After hours of negotiations, it was finally decided that the bodies would be divided according to the proportion of unidentified bodies among the Muslims and Hindus travelling on the plane.
In all, the bodies of 76 Muslims, 15 Hindus and three Christians could not be identified or only a few body parts were found, and their remains were buried or cremated.
‘Even 12 hours after reaching Delhi, the bodies had not been put into coffins. Some of them were lying in the sun and crows were hovering over them.’
There were fights among relatives over coffins and they had to pay bribes to get the coffins.
One of the reasons for the crash of the Kazakhstan plane was “the poor knowledge of the English language of the Kazakhstan pilot, which led to misinterpretation of ATC instructions.” The commission said that both the planes were given clear and proper instructions by ATC which were in accordance with the established procedure and the one-way air corridor of Delhi airport did not play any role in the accident.
the last words of the Saudi flight crew show that they too saw the Kazakhstan plane at the last moment, and they understood that death was very close to them. According to the Lahoti Commission, his last words were: ‘Astagfirullah, Ashhad, Inna Lillahi wa Inna Ilaihi Rajiun.’
From the wreckage of the plane, it was estimated that the Kazakhstan plane had come down from the Saudi plane
And as soon as the Saudi plane appeared, it immediately tried to reach its true height of 15 thousand feet and at the very last moment, its rear part collided with the right ‘on’ of the Saudi aircraft.
The only witness
There were no eyewitnesses of the two planes crashing on the ground, but there was a man in the air who told ATC moments after the crash.
Eight minutes away from Delhi, a US Air Force plane was about to reach Delhi from Islamabad carrying the baggage of the US Embassy. Two minutes after the confrontation, he informed the Delhi ATC that he had spotted a huge fireball that was seen falling on the ground in two different directions within moments.
“We saw something like a huge fireball on our right side. It looks like a big explosion.”
The ATC immediately tried to contact both the aircraft multiple times but there was no response. It was obviously too late.
A minute later, the U.S. plane confirmed the news again, initially mistaking it for a lightning flash, but clarified that “we are currently seeing two fireballs on the right about 44 miles northwest of you.”
“While passing, we saw a huge ball of fire in the clouds and I saw debris. There are two different fires on the ground. Over.”
There was a stir in the village
Residents here recall that day that it was cold weather, and the sky was open and clear that day.
At around 6:30 pm, suddenly fireballs started raining in the fields around them. People panicked and ran out of their homes. The villagers were full of apprehension, but then some villagers were seen running helplessly from the fields.
‘Van khetan ma chilgadi padi hai’
The villagers first informed the police. Only one thing was coming out of people’s mouths, ‘Van khetan ma chilgadi padi hai’ meaning ‘planes are lying in the fields’. It was a horrific plane crash. A few hours later, the incident started to be discussed all over the world.
Aircraft were coming from opposite directions
A large Saudi Arabian Airlines plane and a Kazakhstan Airlines medium passenger plane collided in the air. At the time of the collision, both were flying in the opposite direction over Charkhi Dadri. One had taken off from Delhi airport, the other was about to land in Delhi. At around 6:30 pm, both of them collided in the air and suffered an accident.
Baron on The Fields After the Accident
Farmers Dharamraj Phogat, Bhupendra Sanwal, Purushottam & Ramswaroop say that even today, People’s Souls Tramble after remembering the accident. After the accident, the land of their fields became barons and the remains and corps of both aircraft they scattered in a radius of about ten kilometres. Farmers Worked Hard to Make Baron Land Cultivable.
No memorial and hospital
The then Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and Chief Minister Bansi Lal had announced the construction of a memorial and hospital at Charkhi Dadri. Although a Saudi Arabian institution also ran a temporary hospital in Charkhi Dadri for a few years, it was also closed later. There is neither a memorial nor a hospital in Charkhi Dadri in memory of the deceased.
Even years after the accident, such a mid-air collision between the planes seems an unbelievable event, but the death of 349 people is the ultimate truth, at least for those who lost someone close to them in the accident.
Circumstances forced some to marry the brother of their dead husband, some had to seek employment at a young age, and some had to sacrifice books.