BBC News, Delhi
BBCEvery time Aryan Asari heard the sound of an aeroplane, he would go darting out of the house to look for it.
Spotting planes was something of a hobby for him, his father Maganbhai Asari said. Aryan loved the roaring sound of the engine fill the air and then grow louder as the plane cruised above him, leaving behind chalky threads of contrail in the sky.
But now, the very thought of it makes him sick.
Last Thursday, the 17-year-old had been on the terrace of Mr Asari’s house in Ahmedabad city, making videos of aeroplanes, when an Air India Dreamliner 787-8 crashed right before his eyes and burst into flames, killing 241 on board. Nearly 30 people were also killed on the ground.
The moment was captured by Aryan on his phone.
“I saw the plane. It was going down and down. Then it wobbled and crashed right before my eyes,” he told BBC Gujarati in an interview earlier this week.
The video, now a crucial clue for investigators trying to find the cause of the crash, has sent ripples through the news media and put Aryan – a high school student – at the centre of one of the worst aviation disasters in the country’s history.
“We have been swamped by interview requests. Reporters have been milling around my house day and night asking to speak to him,” Mr Asari told the BBC.
The incident – and what has followed since – has had a “devastating impact” on Aryan, who is traumatised by what he saw. “My son is so scared that he has stopped using his phone,” Mr Asari said.
EPAA retired army soldier, who now works with the city’s metro service, Mr Asari has been staying for three years in a neighbourhood close to the airport. He recently moved to a small room located on the terrace of a three-storey building, with a clear view of the city skyline.
His wife and two children – Aryan and his elder sister – live in their ancestral village near the border between Gujarat and Rajasthan states.
“This was Aryan’s first time in Ahmedabad. Actually, it was the first time in his life that he left the village,” Mr Asari said.
“Whenever I’d call, Aryan would ask if I could spot aeroplanes from our terrace and I would tell him you could see hundreds of them streaking the sky.”
Aryan, he explained, was an aeroplane enthusiast and liked looking at them as they flew in the sky over his village. The idea that he could see them much more closely from the terrace of his father’s new home was very appealing to him.
An opportunity presented itself last week when Mr Asari’s daughter, who wants to become a police officer, travelled to Ahmedabad to write the entrance examination.
Aryan decided to accompany her. “He told me he wanted to buy new notebooks and clothes,” Mr Asari said.
The siblings arrived at their father’s house around noon on Thursday, roughly an hour-and-a-half before the crash.
The family ate lunch together, after which Mr Asari left for work, leaving the children at home.
Aryan stepped out on the terrace and started making videos of the house to show to his friends. That’s when he spotted the Air India plane and began filming it, he told BBC Gujarati.
Aryan soon realised that something was not quite right about the aircraft: “It was shaking, moving left and right,” he said.
As the plane went on a downward spiral, he kept filming it, unable to grasp what was about to happen.
But when thick smoke filled the air and fire spewed out of the buildings, he finally realised what he had just witnessed.
He sent the video to his father and called him up.
“He sounded so frightened – ‘I saw it papa, I saw it crash,’ he said to me and kept asking me what would happen to him. I told him to sit tight and not to worry,” Mr Asari said. “But he was beside himself in horror.”
Mr Asari also asked his son to not share the video further. However, too scared and shocked, Aryan sent it to a few of his friends. “The next thing we knew, the clip was everywhere.”
The next few days were a nightmare for the family.
Neighbours, reporters and camera persons flooded Mr Asari’s small house day and night, requesting to speak to Aryan. “We could do nothing to stop them,” he said.
The family also received a visit from the police, who took Aryan to the station and recorded his statement.
Mr Asari clarified, that contrary to reports, Aryan was not detained, but that police questioned him for a few hours about what he saw.
“My son was so disturbed by then that we decided to send him back to the village.”
Back at home, Aryan has resumed school but is “still not feeling like himself. His mother tells me that every time his phone rings, he gets scared”, Mr Asari said.
“I know he will be fine with time. But I don’t think my son will try looking for airplanes in the sky again,” he added.
Additional reporting by Roxy Gagdekar, BBC Gujarati, in Ahmedabad.
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