Mangalore crash: Some cut short their holiday and their lives

The couple cut short their holiday with their three children in Dubai and rushed back home only to meet a tragic end in Saturday's air crash. TTV Bhaskaranan, 68, and wife Komalavalli,58, had planned to spent their three months in Dubai with their three children, Pramod, Biju and daughter, Rashmi. Hailing from Nileshwar in Kasaragod district in Kerala, they left for Dubai from Mangalore on April 7. “Their original plan was to spend three months with the children. But an urgent family engagement forced them to return on Saturday,” TV Pushpaltha, their niece, told DNA from Mysore.

It was a function to release a biography of Bhaskaran’s maternal uncle NK Balakrishnan, a former minister of Kerala, that brought them back to India. “A retired chief engineer of Kerala's public works department (PWD), Bhaskaran was asked to attend the book release function.” Shivaraman, one of the relatives, said they haven't yet been able to identify the bodies because most of the dead were charred beyond recognition. Mortuaries of Wenlock, AJ Shetty, Father Mueller, KMC Hospital in Attavar, Unity Hospital, and KS Hegde Hospitals have turned into a virtual sea of humanity because they are teeming with relatives of the victims.

Hilda D’Souza was one of the first 15 bodies to be identified. Her brother said that he was waiting for the ambulance to ferry her body to Udupi, their home. According to police commissioner of Mangalore, Seemanth Kumar, there were 156 bodies that had been retrieved from the gutted aircraft.