He only wanted to see a plane — but Aryan Asari ended up filming a national tragedy.
Aryan had just arrived at his father’s rented apartment in Meghaninagar, Ahmedabad, around 12:30 p.m. on June 12. His father, a retired Army jawan currently working as a metro security guard, had recently moved there. Aryan had come from Shamlaji in Aravalli district to purchase school textbooks and was told that planes often flew low over the area. Intrigued, he went up to the terrace, eager to watch.
“I’d never seen a plane so close before,” he told reporters in a trembling voice. “I pulled out my phone to record it, just to show my friends. Everything looked fine at first. Then… it tilted, and crashed. Right in front of me. Then came the flames… black smoke… screaming…”
Frozen in place, Aryan watched in horror. What he thought would be a casual video turned out to capture the deaths of 241 people — including several on the ground — as the aircraft crashed into the BJ Medical College campus shortly after takeoff.
“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I couldn’t believe what I’d just witnessed. I wanted to stop watching, but I couldn’t look away. That moment… it keeps replaying in my mind.”
He first shared the video with his father, but within minutes, it had gone viral — broadcast by news outlets, circulated on social media, and forwarded endlessly across messaging platforms. Aryan had become an accidental witness to a national tragedy.
Kailashba, the owner of the house where Aryan was staying, recounted his state after the incident. “It was his first time in Ahmedabad. No one could’ve imagined that a schoolboy would witness something so horrifying on his first day here. He was pale, unable to eat or speak. He just sat there, trembling.”
Still in shock, Aryan provided a statement to the Ahmedabad Crime Branch on Saturday. But the trauma lingered. Unable to sleep, haunted by nightmares, he pleaded with his father to let him return home.
Now back in his village, Aryan is trying to put the tragedy behind him and focus on his studies. Yet the images—the burning wreckage, the panic, the cries—continue to haunt him.
“I just wanted to see a plane,” he whispered before leaving. “Not watch one fall from the sky.”
