Dubai: Relatives of passengers who were on board the Air India Express plane that crashed on Saturday morning at Mangalore airport are desperately trying to get flight tickets on the first available flights to India.
Imtiaz Habibi, a father who had lost his teenage daughter in the crash, told Gulf News he was hoping to fly to Calicut, the nearest airport located close to Mangalore.
His daughter Niha was here on a vacation and was flying back to Mangalore on board flight IX892.
He said: "I lost my daughter. It's confirmed that he is dead. She was going to college there in Mangalore. I don't want to talk more and even if I want to too I can't. I am desperately trying to get tickets arranged on Emirates airline for my entire family. She was just 17-year-old girl who had a whole life ahead of her but now she is no more."
Promod Bhaskaran dropped his parents off at the airport on Friday night.
Speaking to Gulf News he said: "I just can't believe it. Yesterday my parents were with me and today they are dead. We got to learn about the plane crash when we got a call from our relative in India. My parents are from Nileshvaram a place in Kerala. Mangalore airport is close to where they stayed.
"They had come to Dubai on a vacation. My father was 73 and my mom was 60. My relatives are waiting for us at the hospital so that the bodies could be identified. I can't talk more," he said.
