The lone passenger who survived the deadly Air India plane crash that killed 241 people on Thursday said he thought escape was impossible. But when he opened his eyes, he was still alive--surrounded by flames, debris and charred bodies.
“I don’t know how I’m alive,” Viswash Kumar Ramesh, 38, said in an emotional video call with his father.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed shortly after takeoff at the international airport in Ahmedabad, bursting into flames.
Officials said that the impact, heat and smoke were so intense, that it seemed unlikely there would be any survivors.
Except for Ramesh, a British national of Indian origin, who walked himself to an ambulance with a slight limp. He told a crowd around him that he had come “from inside” the plane.
It was one of India’s worst aviation disasters and the most lethal since the widebody, twin-engine planes went into service in 2009, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.
The aircraft, which was flying from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick Airport, crashed into a medical college hostel just 33 seconds after takeoff.
He was returning to the United Kingdom with his brother, Ajay Kumar Ramesh, 45. Vishwash was seated in 11A, while his brother was seated in said in11J on the right side of the plane, a different row, according to the passenger list.
“I still can’t believe how I got out alive,” Ramesh said in, an interview from his hospital bed with India’s state broadcaster, Doordarshan. “I thought I was also about to die.”
Ramesh, who was seated in an exit row, said the plane had felt “stuck five or 10 seconds after takeoff,” and it seemed to be trying to accelerate when it crashed.
The front of the plane, after hitting buildings, crashed into an open area, he said, while the tail was stuck in a building.
Ramesh said he unbuckled his seatbelt after the crash and forced himself out of the aircraft.
“When my door broke, I saw there was some space — that I could try to get out,” he said in the interview. “The other side, people couldn’t get out, as it was crushed against a wall.”
Ramesh sustained burn injuries on his left hand and walked some distance in shock before he was assisted and taken to an area hospital in an ambulance.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited the crash site on Friday, met Ramesh.
“I told Modi what I had witnessed. He also inquired about my health,” Ramesh said.
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