On June 14, 2025, King Charles III honored the 241 victims of Air India Flight AI171 during his official birthday parade, Trooping the Colour, in London. The Boeing 787-8, bound for London from Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025, crashed into a medical college hostel in Meghani Nagar seconds after takeoff, killing 230 passengers, 12 crew, and eight on the ground.
Vishwashkumar Ramesh, a British national in seat 11A, emerged as the sole survivor, crawling through a ruptured fuselage. At Horse Guards Parade, beneath a gray Westminster sky, Charles led a minute’s silence, standing beside Queen Camilla as 1,400 soldiers in crimson tunics lowered their bearskin caps.
The tribute, broadcast on screens across Green Park, recognized the victims’ diversity, including 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian, among them a Gujarat family of five and two London-bound students. Charles, in his Field Marshal uniform, spoke briefly from Buckingham Palace’s balcony, offering condolences as Welsh Guards marched past flag-lined crowds. The parade, with 250 horses and the Irish Guards’ wolfhound mascot Seamus, continued along The Mall, RAF jets streaking red, white, and blue trails overhead. Ahmedabad’s airport, shuttered since the crash, left travelers stranded, while Gujarat’s streets glowed with candlelit vigils, mourners clutching photos of the lost under monsoon-soaked awnings.
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