Businessman loses 16 relatives in AI flight crash

For 24-year-old Saudi-based businessman Sameer A Shaikh, who was going to attend the last rites of his grandmother, the Mangalore plane crash was a double blow as he lost 16 relatives in it.

All of them, like Sameer, were going to Mangalore for the last rites of his grandmother, who died on Friday.

"I flew into Mumbai from Saudi Arabia on Friday and was scheduled to catch a Jet Airways flight to Mangalore on Saturday morning as I could not get a connecting flight from there," he told PTI at the Mumbai airport.

Distraught over the tragedy that struck the family, Sameer said his maternal uncle, his wife and two children, besides 12 distant relatives, were among those killed when the Air India Express flight from Dubai crashed near Mangalore airport.

"I have been waiting here since morning and there is nobody to inform me about when the flight will depart. Several other overtaxed people who look as if they just ran the marathon are waiting like me for information about the flight to Mangalore, but there is no one to give us correct information," he said.