Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, the only survivor of the tragic Air India flight AI171 crash on Thursday, is alert in the hospital and recounts how he managed to escape from the aircraft that took the lives of 241 passengers and crew members.
Ramesh, a 40-year-old British citizen residing in Leicester, was seated near the front of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner as it departed from Ahmedabad Airport in Gujarat, heading to London’s Gatwick airport.
Traveling with him was his younger brother Ajay, who tragically did not survive the crash as he sat in a different row. The exact cause of the incident remains unclear, but it’s a bit astonishing that Ramesh escaped with relatively slight injuries.
“I spoke to him just yesterday morning. We are heartbroken, utterly heartbroken,” he said, speaking from his family home in Leicester on Friday.
“When he called us, he was mostly worried about my brother,” he added.
After the crash, Ramesh found himself wandering the streets, covered in blood and suffering from burns. It took some time for onlookers to realize he was a survivor of the plane crash, not just a pedestrian affected by it. He managed to walk to an ambulance on his own, clutching a less damaged smartphone he found.
Data from the flight indicates that AI171 reached a maximum altitude of 625 feet and was traveling near 200 mph before plummeting to the ground, ultimately crashing into a medical hostel. From his hospital bed, Ramesh expressed his confusion, much like anyone else who survived.
“It all happened in a flash. I genuinely thought I was going to die,” he shared during an interview with India’s NDTV.
He believes his survival was partly due to his proximity to the emergency exit.
“The side I was on fell to the ground level of the building. There was an opening. When the door gave way, I noticed that space and jumped out,” he recounted.
Ramesh described his luck in that the doors of the building where the plane impacted were broken by the crash, allowing him to escape from the severely damaged structure.
“There was a wall on the other side, but there was an opening nearby. I just ran. I wasn’t quite sure how I got out. For a moment, I thought I was going to die,” he continued.
Ramesh recounted seeing a flight attendant who was “dead right in front of my eyes.”
“It all happened so fast. When I got up, there were bodies around me. I was terrified. I stood up and ran, surrounded by wreckage. Someone pulled me, got me into the ambulance, and brought me to the hospital,” he said.
When reflecting on those last moments of the doomed flight, he remarked, “It felt like the plane was stuck,” and something went wrong.
“Then all of a sudden, lights were flashing like green and white inside the plane. The pilot was attempting to gain altitude, but it was like it just couldn’t. Then it went straight into the building,” he explained.
Aviation experts commented that the lights Ramesh described could suggest the aircraft was switching to backup power following a severe malfunction of the primary system. Investigations will be needed to understand more about the crash details.
Professor John Hansman from MIT suggested that the aircraft was likely at such an angle that the section where Ramesh was seated broke away, prompting him to leave the aircraft swiftly.
“The tail hits first, causing the entire fuselage to pitch forward and strike the ground, which results in the fuselage breaking apart,” he noted.
Aviation analysts have speculated various potential causes for the crash, including problems with the aircraft’s wing flaps during takeoff or even bird strikes, reminiscent of the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson” incident in New York. There’s been a growing interest in this case, fueling discussions across various platforms.
