Latest News
A video showing the moment a 40-year-old Ramesh Viswashkumar walked out alive after the ill-fated Air India plane crashed has surfaced online.
Recall that the crash killed over 200 persons.
The plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad on Thursday.
The British national of Indian origin was on board flight AI171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner en route to London Gatwick, when the aircraft crashed into a medical college hostel within moments of liftoff. The impact ignited a massive fire that gutted the fuselage and surrounding buildings.
From his hospital bed in Ahmedabad’s Civil Hospital, a visibly shaken Viswashkumar recounted the final moments before impact and his desperate escape.
“I don’t believe how I survived. 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. It was in front of my eyes that the air hostess and others died,” he told India’s state broadcaster, DD News.
Viswashkumar had been seated in 11A, near an emergency exit, an apparent factor in his survival. According to officials, the aircraft came to rest in such a way that the fuselage split near its section, revealing a narrow opening. The opposite side was completely crushed against the hostel building.
“The side of the plane I was in landed on the ground, and I could see that there was space outside the aircraft. So when my door broke, I tried to escape through it, and I did,” he recalled.
Footage of Viswashkumar, limping, bloodied, and dazed, wandering the streets outside the crash site has gone viral, a haunting visual of survival amid catastrophe.
Medical personnel treating him described his condition as stable, with no life-threatening injuries.
“His escape… and without any grievous injury, was nothing short of a miracle. He also realises that and is a bit shaken by the trauma of it too,” a hospital official told Reuters.