Ahmedabad, June 13 : In a story of incredible survival against all odds, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh—the lone survivor of the tragic Air India Flight AI171 crash near Ahmedabad—has shared how a split-second twist of fate saved his life as 265 others perished in the disaster.
Ramesh, a British national, was seated in 11A beside the emergency exit on the aircraft’s left side. As the plane disintegrated moments after takeoff, his seat was torn from the fuselage and thrown clear of the burning wreckage. Still strapped in, Ramesh was miraculously spared the flames that consumed the aircraft.
“The plane broke, and my seat came off,” he recounted to medical staff at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital. “That is how I was saved.”
He clarified that he didn’t leap from the aircraft—rather, he was hurled out while still belted into his seat during the mid-air structural failure. He landed near ground level, dazed but conscious, and managed to unbuckle himself.
“The place where I landed was low\… I took off the seat belt and for a moment, I was scared for my life. But I was near ground level, so I tried to get out,” Ramesh told DD News.
With the aircraft’s doors shattered and the wreckage ablaze, he managed to walk out unaided—narrowly escaping the scene of chaos and death.
“I can’t believe how I survived,” he said, still in shock. “I thought I would die. People died in front of my eyes.”
Ramesh’s survival is being hailed as nothing short of miraculous in what is now one of India’s worst air tragedies in recent memory.
On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital , where he met the lone survivor of the Air India plane crash that killed 241 people. The survivor, identified as a British national of Indian origin, was receiving treatment for injuries sustained in the crash. PM Modi was accompanied by Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu during the hospital visit, where he also met with medical staff and other injured individuals
