Prasad Patil (centre), who was stranded at Brussels airport after the terror attack, is welcomed by his family at Mumbai international airport. (Photo: PTI)
Prasad Patil (centre), who was stranded at Brussels airport after the terror attack, is welcomed by his family at Mumbai international airport. (Photo: PTI)
Seventy passengers who had been stranded in the Belgian capital, Brussels, after Tuesday’s explosions, were brought back safely to Mumbai on Friday morning by Jet Airways flight number 9W1229 (Amsterdam-Delhi-Mumbai). Relatives and friends converged at the city airport terminal way before the flight landed around 9.30am.
Digambar Karande, tried to hold back his tears as he hugged his son, Jaydeep Karande (30). Mr Digambar told this newspaper that his son had been re-born today. He was scared out of his wits after failing to get in touch with his son for several hours after the explosions. Mr Jaydeep, had completed his one-year course in hotel management in the US and was returning to Mumbai via Brussels. Too much in shock to speak at first, Mr Jaydeep later said that his aircraft had landed at Brussels at 7.50am on Tuesday and he was waiting for his next flight when terror struck. He heard a loud noise and people screaming. It was later that local authorities rescued them and transferred them to relief base camps.
Lata Mohan Patel (57), hugged one of her relatives who was present as soon as she came out from the terminal building. She told this newspaper that she had left from Toronto, where she stays with her husband and son, on March 21, and was travelling to Navsari, Gujarat, to meet her brother. After landing at Brussels, while waiting for her connecting flight, she heard a loud noise. Ms Patel said there was chaos as police tried to gather every one, first taking them out of the terminal building and then making them walk about 3km before shifting them into a bus. The bus left them as the airforce camp where they were shifted into tiny tents. “Later, some people gave us tea, milk and juices along with bread to eat. They made us talk to our families too, and I am really obliged to them for that,” she said.
Ms Patel said as many as 1,300 people were in camps and on March 24, Jet Airways brought them out and shifted them onto the flight. “Brussels airport is still shut and our luggage is still there,” she said. Ms Patel visits Navsari every year but she will never forget this one time, she said.
Prasad Patil (27), a student of hotel management, who too was flying back after completing his degree in the US, said that he was at the other end of Brussels airport when the explosions occurred. Later, the military took them out and provided accommodation. Mr Prasad’s father, Chandrakant Patil, who came from Panvel to receive his son said, “He had done his course from Pune and last year, he went to the US for his degree, On March 21, he left from there, and when he was in Brussels, we heard about the blasts which scared us completely as we were worried about our son.
Two more passengers Nandeep Jaikar and Fransis D’Souza said it was a nightmare which they wanted to forget. They said the scene at the airport was so scary that no one understood what had really happened and only after the military arrived was there some sign of relief.
The sister-in-law of flight attendent Nidhi Chaphekar, one of the injured crew members, said, “My husband and her husband are there and she is recovering properly and I guess within ten days, she will be back.”
Jet Airways flight number 9W1229 (Amsterdam-Delhi) carrying 242 people who were stranded at the Brussels airport and metro station after Tuesday’s explosions, 28 crew members among them, left Amsterdam at 4.54 local time on Thursday after it combined its Mumbai flight. The flight landed at Delhi airport at around 5.30am and later at Mumbai airport at 9.30am on Friday.
