Ms Chauhan, a business administration student who lives in Bristol with her husband, had been visiting western India for a holiday. The 28-year-old was due to fly home on AI171 on Thursday, which crashed shortly after take-off, killing 241 people on board and more on the ground. But after arriving at the airport less than an hour before departure, airline staff turned her away.

"We got very angry with our driver and left the airport in frustration," she recalls. "I was very disappointed. "We left the airport and stood at a place to drink tea and after a while, before leaving... we were talking to the travel agent about how to get a refund for the ticket. "There, I got a call that the plane had gone down." Speaking to the BBC's Gujarati service, she adds: "This is totally a miracle for me." Ms Chauhan says she arrived at the airport at 12:20 PM local time, 10 minutes after boarding was due to commence. Her digital boarding pass, seen by BBC News, shows her assigned to economy class seat 36G. But despite having checked in online, she says airline staff would not allow her to complete the process at the airport. (BBC)