Two sisters who had visited their grandmother to celebrate her birthday were among those killed.

Dhir and Heer Baxi, both in their 20s, had travelled from their homes in London to Ahmedabad for a surprise visit and were returning when the flight crashed.

Heer (L) and Dhir Baxi with their grandmother whose birthday they had just celebrated in India

Their family and friends said that “everything has vanished” in their world after the “young talents” were killed.

Dhir, a designer, graduated from Parsons Paris art and design school in 2024 with a bachelor of fine arts degree in fashion design, while Heer worked in London after graduating from Barnard College, a liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University, with a bachelor of arts in economics and east Asian languages and cultures.

She had previously worked in Hong Kong and Singapore, where the sisters are believed to have grown up.

Dhir’s Instagram profile reads “Paris and London”, and most of her posts are photo shoots of her clothing with various collaborators. Her family said she was about to return to the French capital for a show.

Their elder brother, Ishan Baxi, told The Telegraph: “I can’t express what my complete family is going through – shell shocked, not coming to terms is what I can say right now

“Both had a natural aura of helping and always cared about family values. They both had aspirations to be successful enough to roam around the world, tension-free. Along with their parents, they both had a proclivity towards modernisation without changing traditional values.

“Both my sisters know what is right and what is wrong, thus whatever work they carried out, in academics or fashion, they always got success with no conflicts amongst peers or seniors.”

On Heer’s last Instagram post from November 2024, a comment was added on Thursday evening that said: “RIP young talent”, alongside a photo of a model wearing one of Dhir’s dress designs with a traditional gajra, a flower garland, in her hair.