A Final Family Selfie. Then The Plane Crashed.

(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer)
The Last Selfie of Joshi family.

The seatbelt signs had blinked on. Passengers were settling in, finding their places. A few were still stowing bags overhead, a few already pulling out snacks or headphones.

On one side of the aisle, Dr Pratik Joshi leaned in toward his wife, Dr Komi Vyas. Across from them, their three children - Miraya, just eight, and her twin brothers, Nakul and Pradyut, five - sat in a neat row. They were dressed in sweatshirts, cheeks bright, eyes wide.

Pratik raised his phone and took a selfie.

They were finally together, the five of them, on the same plane, heading to London. It had taken six years to reach this moment - six long years of waiting, planning, saving, and hoping.

Then, just 32 seconds after takeoff, it was over.

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Air India Flight AI-171 had barely cleared the skies above Ahmedabad before one of its engines failed. The plane tilted sharply, lost height fast, and slammed into a building site beyond the runway. It burst into flames on impact.

All 242 people on board - except for one foreign national of Indian origin - were killed. Among them: the Joshi family.

But their photo lived on.

That smiling selfie - full of light, full of breath, full of everything they were about to become - spread like a pulse through WhatsApp groups and newsfeeds. First it reached relatives. Then neighbours. Then strangers. It is now everywhere: a frozen moment of joy, captured just before the fall.

Pratik was 37. A quiet, soft-spoken man. He had been living in London since 2016, working as a doctor. Over the years, he built a life for his family - slowly, carefully. A small flat. A job that paid enough. A school picked out for the kids. Uniforms bought. Notebooks stacked on their little beds.

Komi, also a doctor, stayed behind in Banswara, Rajasthan. She taught medicine in Udaipur and raised the children alone. She waited. She trusted the timing. Trusted that the day would come.

They didn't rush. They were careful. They spoke almost every night, plotting a new life across time zones and calendars.

That Thursday morning, the dream was finally real. The bags were packed. Komi had left her job. The children had said their goodbyes to teachers and friends. She had tucked some sweets into her handbag.

At the airport, they sat across the aisle from their children. There was quiet laughter. Small talk. The sounds of a journey just beginning.

Then Pratik took that photo.

And then the sky gave way.

The plane never reached cruising altitude. Those watching from the ground saw the aircraft lean too far, too fast, before vanishing from sight. Then - a fireball.

The wreckage burned for hours. Inside it, they found blackened seats, torn clothes, toys flung far from where little hands had held them.

The black box has been found. Boeing has promised to help. But for now, the answers are few. Investigators say the engine failed without warning. There was no time to fix, no time to turn back, no time to say anything.

In Banswara, neighbours gather outside the Joshi family's home, but speak little. There are no bodies yet. Only forms to fill, DNA samples to send.

And still - the photo.

It is everywhere. On phones, in inboxes, on screens that dim and light again. Five faces, beaming. Still smiling. Still full of hope. Still airborne - just not here.

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