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Passenger on seat 11A survived Air India crash, says trouble started 30 seconds into flight
Vishwash, a British national, was in India for a few days to visit his family and was going back to the UK along with his brother, Ajay Kumar Ramesh (45)
AHMEDABAD: As relatives of those aboard the Air India flight desperately look for their loved ones at the Civil Hospital, Asarwa in Ahmedabad, on a bed in the general ward lies 40-year-old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who said he survived the deadly crash.
“Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly,” Vishwash, who received “impact injuries” on his chest, eyes and feet, told HT.
The Gatwick-bound Air India flight – a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner – with 242 people, including crew members, took off at 1.38 pm on Thursday and crashed within minutes, and burst into flames.
Air India said 169 of the 230 passengers were Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian.
Vishwash, a British national, was in India for a few days to visit his family and was going back to the UK along with his brother, Ajay Kumar Ramesh (45).
Vishwash, who still had his boarding pass, told HT, “When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me. Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital.”
Vishwash said he had lived in London for 20 years, adding that his wife and child too live in London.
Videos of him walking – a limp is the only thing that suggests he may have been in an accident – into an ambulance have since emerged, and experts say the fact that he survived the crash is nothing short of a miracle.
Ramesh said that his brother was seated in a different row in the plane. “We visited Diu. He was travelling with me and I can’t find him anymore. Please help me find him.”
According to Ahmedabad police commissioner GS Malik, Ramesh was found in his seat 11A. “The police found one survivor in seat 11A. He has been in the hospital and is under treatment. Cannot say anything about the number of deaths yet. The death toll may increase as the flight crashed in a residential area,” he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Following the incident, Ramesh’s cousin Ajay Valgi said the former had called his family to inform them that he was doing fine. “He said that he was fine. Nothing else,” Valgi, who is based out of Leicester in Great Britain, told news organisation BBC.
The hospital was shrouded in grief and anxiety as people looked for their family members and friends – and desperately prayed that they had survived the deadly crash. Among those looking for their kin was the family of Gujarat’s former chief minister Vijay Rupani, who too was on that flight. Sailesh Mandliya, former PA to Rupani, was looking for the former CM in the survivors' ward. “We are looking for him. If you find out something, let me know.”
But most of the people being treated were from the BJ Medical College’s undergraduate mess into which the plane crashed.
Later in the evening, BJP leaders, including Union minister CR Paatil, confirmed that Rupani had died in the tragic crash.
