The teenager who filmed Ahmedabad’s video plane that the world saw

Every time Arian Asari heard the sound of an airplane, he would get out of the house to look for him.

Noticing planes was something like a hobby for him, his father Maganbhai Asar said. Arian loved the roaring sound of the engine to fill the air and then to be stronger as the plane travels over it, leaving behind fragile threads of the contraption in the sky.

But now the very thought of this is ill.

Last Thursday, the 17-year-old was on the terrace of Mr. Assari’s house in Ahmedabad, making aircraft videos when the Air India DreamLiner 787-8 crashed right in front of his eyes and burst into flames, killing 241 on board. Nearly 30 people were also killed on the ground.

The moment was captured by Arian on his phone.

“I saw the plane. He went down and down. Then he shaken and crashed right in front of my eyes,” he told the BBC Gujarati in an interview earlier this week.

The video, now a decisive clue for investigators trying to find the cause of the crash, sent pulsations through the news media and put Arius – a high school student – at the center of one of the oldest aviation disasters in the history of the country.

“We were covered with requests for an interview. Reporters grinded around my house day and night asking me to talk to him,” Assari told the BBC.

The incident – and what has followed since then – has a “devastating effect” on Ari, which is traumatized by what has been seen. “My son is so scared that he stopped using his phone,” said Asari.

A retired army soldier who is now working with the city service of the subway, d -Asari stayed for three years in a neighborhood near the airport. He recently moved to a small room, located on the terrace of a three -storey building, with a clear view of the silhouette of the city.

His wife and two children – Arian and his bigger sister – live in the village of their ancestors near the border between Gujarat and Rajasthan.

“It was Arian’s first time in Ahmedabad. In fact, for the first time in his life, he left the village,” said Asari.

“Every time I call, Arian would ask me if I could notice planes on our terrace and I would tell him that you can see hundreds of them fall apart in the sky.”

Arian, he explained, was an enthusiast on the plane and liked to look at them as they flew in the sky above his village. The idea that he could see them much more than the terrace of his father’s new home was very attractive to him.

The opportunity appeared last week when the daughter of G -N Assari, who wants to become a police officer, travels to Ahmedabad to write the entrance exam.

Arian decided to accompany her. “He told me he wanted to buy new notebooks and clothes,” said Assari.

The siblings arrived at their father’s house around noon on Thursday, about an hour and a half before the crash.

The family ate together, after which D -n Asari went to work, leaving the children at home.

Arian went out onto the terrace and began to make videos of the house to show his friends. Then he noticed the Air India plane and started shooting it, he told BBC Gujarati.

Arian soon realized that something was not quite right on the plane: “He was shaking, moving left and right,” he said.

As the plane walked down the downward, he continued to shoot him, unable to understand what would happen.

But when the thick smoke filled the air and the fire escaped from the buildings, he finally realized what he was just witnessing.

He sent his father’s video and called him.

“He sounded so scared -” I saw him Dad, I saw him a crash, “he told me, and he continued to ask me what would happen to him. I told him to sit tight and not worry,” said Asari. “But he was in horror.”

Asari also asked her son not to share the video further. However, too scared and shocked, Arian sent him to several of his friends. “The next thing we knew, the video was everywhere.”

The next few days were a nightmare for the family.

Neighbors, reporters and faces of cameras flooded the small house of Asari day and night, asking to talk to Arian. “We couldn’t do anything to stop them,” he said.

The family also received a visit from the police, who took Arian to the station and recorded his statement.

Asari explained that, contrary to the reports, Arian was not detained, but that police were questioning him for a few hours about what he had seen.

“My son was so alarmed until we decided to send him back to the village.”

At home, Arian has resumed the school, but “he still does not feel like himself. His mother tells me that every time his phone rings, he is scared,” said Asari.

“I know it will be fine with time. But I don’t think my son will try to look for planes in the sky again,” he added.

Additional reporting from Roxy Gagdekar, BBC Gujarati, in Ahmedabad.

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