Desperate relatives try to reach India

Two special flights will depart today and control centre opened at Dubai airport to relay information, but for most it was bad news.

Relatives and friends of those aboard Flight 812 wait for news at the ticketing office of Air India Express in Deira, Dubai.

DUBAI // As emergency workers sifted through the crash wreckage in Mangalore, 38 relatives of the victims were stranded for hours in the UAE while their flight to India was grounded by mechanical trouble. An Indian Airlines flight was supposed to leave at about 1.30pm yesterday but could not take off because of engine problems, said Abhay Pathak, the regional manager for Indian Airlines in Dubai.

"These relatives were eager to take the first flight to India, so we put them on the Calicut flight from Dubai," said Mr Pathak. "However, the flight was grounded due to technical reasons. There were engine problems. Now, we have special ferry flights coming from India that will take the relatives straight to Mangalore." Two special flights would fly empty from India and collect the stranded relatives. But that could not happen before 1am today, he added.

"We are stuck here but we have no choice. They are taking us to a hotel where all of us will stay until we take the next flight," said Martin Olivera, whose wife, Shanti, was killed in the crash. "We are desperate to get to India somehow." The relatives were among the first batch of people to try to get to India. About a half-dozen others turned up later. Earlier, panic-stricken relatives of passengers on Air India Express Flight 812 had rushed to Terminal 2 of Dubai airport looking for any information on the survivors.

Authorities took the families into a control centre, where a direct information channel was provided for updates on each passenger. Many of those gathered covered their faces and wept as news trickled in that there were few survivors. Among the distraught relatives was Girish Shetty, 41, looking for information on his brother and trying to book the next available flight to Mangalore. Girish was the older brother of Mahesh Shetty, 32, who died in the accident.

Girish had dropped off his youngest brother at Terminal 2 just hours before the plane set off for Mangalore. His brother, he said, was visiting his home country for two days to meet a woman he was expected to marry. He was looking forward to the occasion. "He was such a happy-go-lucky young man," Mr Shetty said. "A real party animal. His friends are really going to miss him. We all will." Mahesh had recently been promoted to sales manager at a cargo company in Dubai, where he had worked for three years. He had moved out of his eldest brother's home and into an apartment in International City with friends.

With Mangalore's airport closed, Girish was flying to another airport six hours from the family home in Kerala. He said he could not even think about funeral plans or what would happen next. "It is all too soon," he said. Sanjay Verma, India's consul general in Dubai, visited the airline's control room and gave assurance of passports and other assistance to families wanting to travel to India. Relatives queued for places on Air India Express planes at the ticketing centre in Deira, trying to get to India as soon as possible.

Airline officials struggled to console the relatives, many of whom were crying. Free tickets were issued to all relatives of the victims. "We are tired of this and don't want to deal with tickets or the media at this time of sorrow," said Slyvia Wilson, whose aunt, Flavia Lobo, and her two children, Vinisha, 15, and Vishal, eight, were feared dead. "We are hoping to take the quickest flight from here and get to Mangalore somehow," said Ms Wilson, who was queuing with her brother, Charles. Her aunt had just been to Dubai for a summer holiday.

Clutching a copy of his brother's ticket, Muneer Beeran Moideen waited anxiously at the centre. "I hear that my brother, Sameer Moideen, has died in the crash," he said. Sameer, 27, had taken the flight to India after working in Dubai for two years. [e-mail] [e-mail]