40 year old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh miraculously survived and walked away from the Air India plane disaster which is believed to have claimed the lives of over 200 hundred people. 🙏🙏🙏🙏
A British father miraculously walked away from the Air India plane disaster which is believed to have claimed the lives of hundreds of people.
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, spoke from the safety of a hospital bed hours after making an incredible escape from the doomed Gatwick-bound Flight 171 earlier today.
Astonishing footage showed the passenger with visible injuries hobbling away from the scene of the crash. He reportedly sustained injuries to his chest, eyes and feet.
Police found the passenger, who had been in seat 11A when the jet came down, in a residential area in Gujarat, and transferred him to a nearby hospital for treatment.
This afternoon his family confirmed that Mr Ramesh was on board – but that they had not heard from another relative who they believed was also on the flight.
Speaking to local media from his hospital bed, Mr Ramesh said that his brother had been sitting on another row adding ‘I can’t find him anymore’.
‘Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly,’ he added.
‘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.’
Mr Ramesh, who lives in London with his wife and child, was travelling home from seeing family in India when the plane crashed, hitting buildings housing doctors in the city of Ahmedabad.
On the ground, police said they had found another survivor in the hospital struck by the plane. The confirmed death toll has climbed to at least 240 people, according to police.
Before the discovery of the British survivor, authorities said that they believed no one had escaped the flight alive. The plane had been carrying 244 passengers, according to police.
There were 53 British nationals on board as well as 159 Indian nationals, seven Portuguese citizens and a Canadian. Eleven of those on board were children, including two newborns.
British passengers Akeel Nanabawa, his wife Hannaa Vorajee and their daughter, who lived in Gloucester, were on board the flight, the BBC reported this evening.
Rescue teams supported by the military have recovered 204 bodies from the scene so far, with casualties from the plane and the area surrounding the crash.
Aviation experts say that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner may have suddenly lost power ‘at the most critical phase of flight’ after takeoff.
Astonishing footage showed the man walking away from the scene with some visible injuries to his face
Authorities had said earlier they believed there were no survivors on the Gatwick-bound flight that crashed in Gujarat carrying 242 passengers, including 53 Britons
The plane momentarily disappeared from view behind trees and buildings before a massive fireball erupted on the horizon in this horrifying clip
A video posted to social media appeared to show the plane descending in a controlled manner with a high nose angle and landing gear deployed
Police said they had found a lone survivor who had been sitting in seat 11A when Flight 171 crashed shortly after takeoff in India this morning
The possible causes are believed to include a rapid change in wind or a bird strike leading to a double engine stall.
Officials from India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau are now at the scene to carry out an analysis of the wreckage and retrieve the stricken jet’s black box.
Videos shared on social media showed the aircraft rapidly losing altitude – with its nose up – before it hit a building and erupted in a violent explosion.
Ahmedabad Police Commissioner GS Malik confirmed that one passenger had somehow survived the crash.
‘The police found one survivor in seat 11A. He has been taken to the hospital and is currently receiving treatment,’ he told news agency ANI.
‘As for the number of casualties, it’s too early to confirm. The crash occurred in a residential area, so the death toll may rise.’
The Boeing jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad Airport in Gujarat at around 1:40pm (0810 GMT), officials said.
Ahmedabad, the main city of India’s Gujarat state, is home to around eight million people, and the busy airport is surrounded by densely packed residential areas.
‘When we reached the spot there were several bodies lying around and firefighters were dousing the flames,’ resident Poonam Patni told AFP.
‘Many of the bodies were burned,’ she added.
‘Our office is near the building where the plane crashed. We saw people from the building jumping from the second and third floor to save themselves. The plane was in flames,’ said one resident, who declined to be named.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the scenes from the crash were ‘devastating’, in a statement addressing passengers and their families ‘at this deeply distressing time.’
The UK government said Thursday it was sending a team to support the investigation.
Boeing said it was ‘working to gather more information’ on the incident which a source close to the case said was the first crash for a 787 Dreamliner.
Lt. Col. John R. Davidson, a former US Air Force pilot and commercial aviation safety consultant, said the plane appeared to have reached takeoff speed but not altitude, according to flight data, suggesting ‘either a very late rotation or a stall shortly after takeoff’.
‘There are a number of possible scenarios: thrust or engine performance issues, excessive aircraft weight, poor trim or flap configuration, or a more critical failure that affected the aircraft’s ability to climb,’ he said.
‘Weather, windshear or even bird strike can’t be ruled out either at this early stage.’
Preliminary flight tracking data from flightradar24 reveals the plane reached an altitude of just 625ft after takeoff – a height far below standard for a commercial aircraft several minutes into departure.
Captain Saurabh Bhatnagar, a former senior pilot, told NDTV that circulating footage showing the plane’s terrifying descent ‘looked like a case of multiple bird hits wherein both the engines have lost power’.
‘The takeoff was perfect,’ he said. ‘And just, I believe, short of taking the gear up, the aircraft started descending, which can happen only in case the engine loses power or the aircraft stops developing lift.’
Aviation expert Sanjay Lazar noted that the Dreamliner was only 11 years old, so was unlikely to have underlying technical issues. The plane was under the command of Captain Summeet Sabharwal, who had 8,200 hours of experience.
A bird strike ‘would explain why the aircraft did not have the power to lift,’ he said. ‘If there were multiple bird hits on take-off, it probably could not have gone beyond the 6-7 minute threshold and started falling.’
In pilots’ forums, aviation experts said that it sounded like the plane’s Ram Air Turbine (RAT), an emergency wind turbine, had been deployed shortly before the crash.
