Relief amid Gulf crash tragedy

The ill-fated Abu Hajaj family from Gaza

Amid the tragedy of the Gulf Air disaster, one family has reason to give thanks after a loved one was stopped at the last minute from boarding the doomed plane.

I had a mysterious feeling I wasn't going to leave

Hisham al-Husseini

Egyptian teacher Hisham al-Husseini said a Cairo airport official had refused to let him on flight 072 because his passport was not stamped with the necessary interior ministry permit for working abroad.

Mr al-Husseini's bureaucratic faux pas saved his life on Wednesday; otherwise he would have been among the 143 people who died when the plane plunged into sea off Bahrain.

But other families have been facing the awful trauma of having to identify their relatives recovered from the wreckage.

The will of God

Hisham al-Husseini, embraced by his father and sister

Mr al-Husseini's escape came about because of his belief that only Egyptian government employees needed permits to work abroad.

One of millions of Egyptians who work abroad, he had been due to return to his job teaching Arabic in Oman.

"I just got engaged three weeks ago, and I had a mysterious feeling I wasn't going to leave.

"Just before I went to the airport I told my fiancee, 'I think I've forgotten something'," he said in an interview with the French news agency AFP.

Passengers

63 Egyptians

34 Bahrainis

12 Saudis

Nine Palestinians

Six UAE citizens

Three Chinese

Two Britons

One American, Australian, Canadian, Kuwaiti, Omani, Sudanese

On hearing that the airliner had crashed with no survivors, Mr al-Husseini said he felt his body "turn cold, like a piece of ice" and he is haunted by the faces of those he saw board the flight.

"It's the will of God, who wanted to write a new life for me," the lucky survivor added.

Seven sons

One of those he saw may have been another teacher, Palestinian Muhammad Abu Hajaj from Gaza, who was on the flight with his wife and seven children.

Muhammad Abu Hajaj with his family

Mr Abu Hajaj worked in Bahrain, although he had been planning to leave and buy a house in Gaza's Khan Yunis.

His parents received a stream of condolence visits at home in Khan Yunis after the crash, his mother, Ni'ma Hajaj, offering a fatalistic view of what had happened.

"God has decided to take all of them," she said.

"They have been all their lives around me and God will not even save one of them. They are all now buried"

Tragedy and relief

The Bahrain Tribune reported other tales of joy and sadness as people either joined the doomed flight at the last minute or cancelled their seats.

Cabin crew members Salman Ismail Hassan and Inderjit Kaur had actually been called onto the flight from stand-by duty.

Relatives wait at the Gulf Hotel to identify family members

The only Kuwaiti national on the flight, father-of-six Sa'd Rashid al-Hajiri, had been waiting in Cairo for a direct flight to Kuwait. His brother did find a seat on a Kuwait Airways flight and arrived safely.

And the Tribune talks of another "miraculous escape", although not quite of the same order as Mr al-Husseini's deliverance.

Bahraini woman Luban Abdulnabi thought her fiance had been on the flight and rushed to the airport fearing the worst.

"After the longest hours of my life, he called and told me he had postponed his return at the last minute - thank God," she said.