Bhoomi Chauhan was headed for Ahmedabad airport to board her flight to Gatwick on Thursday.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic was so bad that she missed the Air India flight AI171 by 10 minutes.
The 28-year-old said she rocked up to the gate less than an hour before the plane was due to take off, but staff turned her away.
“We got very angry with our driver and left the airport in frustration,” she told the BBC. “I was very disappointed.
“We left the airport and stood at a place to drink tea and after a while, before leaving… we were talking to the travel agent about how to get a refund for the ticket.
“There, I got a call that the plane had gone down.”
Shortly after takeoff, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner plummeted into a doctor’s hostel, killing all but one passenger and another 50 people on the ground.
Chauhan, a business admin student, was returning home to her husband in Bristol after visiting west India for a holiday.
She arrived at the airport 10 minutes after boarding had started, and despite having checked in online, staff would not allow her onto the plane.
The student had driven over 200km from Ankleshwar to Ahmedabad for the flight, but she got held up by Ahmedabad city’s traffic.
“When I missed the flight, I was dejected. Only thing that I had in mind was, ‘If I had started a little early, I would have boarded the plane’,” she said.
“I requested airline staff to allow me inside as I am only 10 minutes [late]. I told them that I am the last passenger and so please allow me to board the plane, but they did not allow me.”
The student told BBC that missing her flight was “totally a miracle for me”.
British national, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, was the only survivor of the crash.
Ramesh told Indian broadcaster Doordarshan that he escaped through a small space near the door by his seat.
He said his hand was burned by the flames as he fled from the aircraft.
“I don’t know how I managed to escape,” Ramesh said, adding that he saw other passengers die in front of him.
“For some time, I thought I was also going to die. But when I opened my eyes, I realised I was alive and I tried to unbuckle myself from the seat and escape from where I could,” he said.
