The Seat 11A Mystery: How Lone Survivor Of Air India Crash Cheated Death

New Delhi:

Only one person walked out of the shattered Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. British-Indian national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, seated in 11A, emerged as the sole survivor of Air India flight AI-171, which crashed just moments after takeoff from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.

The crash, India’s deadliest single-aircraft disaster in decades, occurred at 1:38 pm on Thursday. The aircraft, bound for London Gatwick, went down seconds after departure, striking a multi-storey hostel housing resident doctors of BJ Medical College in the Meghaninagar area. Among the dead were 229 passengers and 12 crew members. Officials said five medical students on the ground also died.

But Mr Ramesh, a 40-year-old businessman based in the UK, walked out of the wreckage dazed, bloodied and burned. His brother, seated in 11J across the aisle, was not as fortunate.

“Everything happened in front of my eyes. I thought I would die,” Mr Ramesh told Doordarshan hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited him at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.

Final Moments Before Impact

According to preliminary air traffic control logs, the Dreamliner took off from runway 23 at 13:38 IST. It climbed normally for a few seconds before the pilot radioed a Mayday distress call. Eyewitnesses near the airport perimeter reported hearing abnormal engine noise, followed by a steep nosedive. Seconds later, the aircraft slammed into the hostel’s southern wing.

The plane was commanded by Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, a Line Training Captain with 8,200 hours of flying experience, and First Officer Clive Kundar, with 1,100 hours logged.

The View From Seat 11A

Seat 11A is positioned in the first row of economy class, directly behind the business cabin and close to the emergency exits on the left side. When the aircraft hit the ground, the front-left section, including 11A, collapsed into the ground floor of the hostel building, not the upper levels where the aircraft’s main body suffered its worst destruction.

“The side where I was seated fell into the ground floor of the building,” Mr Ramesh recounted. “There was some space. When the door broke, I saw that space and I just jumped out.”

Mr Ramesh was lucky. The section opposite him, where the plane had rammed into a wall, was sealed off by debris and fire. None of the occupants from those rows survived.

“The door must’ve broken on impact,” he said. “There was a wall on the opposite side, but near me, it was open. I ran. I don’t know how.”

Photos from the site confirm his account. The midsection and tail of the plane were reduced to charred rubble. But the forward fuselage had partially broken off before catching fire, allowing a narrow exit path.

“I don’t know how I came out of it alive,” Mr Ramesh told Doordarshan. “For a while, I thought I was about to die. But when I opened my eyes, I saw I was alive. And I opened my seat belt and got out of there. The airhostess and aunty uncle all died before my eyes.” 

Mr Ramesh is now in bed 11 of Ward B7 at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, under 24-hour monitoring. His ward is guarded by the Gujarat ATS and the city crime branch.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Ahmedabad early today. He visited the crash site and later the hospital, where he met Mr Ramesh.

“He asked me what happened,” Mr Ramesh said. “I told him I don’t know how I lived. It all happened so fast.”

The Lone Survivor Cases

The fact that only one person survived has drawn comparisons to past aviation disasters where a single passenger lived.

In 1987, four-year-old Cecelia Cichan survived the Northwest Flight 255 crash in Detroit. In 2009, Bahia Bakari, 12, was the only survivor of Yemenia Flight 626 crash near the Comoros Islands. More recently, co-pilot Jim Polehinke survived the 2006 Comair crash in Kentucky.