The sole survivor of Thursday’s Air India plane crash, a British national, recounted how he escaped the wreckage through a break in the fuselage.
“I managed to unbuckle myself, used my leg to push through that opening, and crawled out,” Vishwashkumar Ramesh told Indian state media DD News.
Ramesh, 40, was seated in 11A on the London-bound Boeing 787 when the aircraft went down shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad in western India.
According to Air India, everyone else on board was killed in the crash – including 169 Indian citizens and 52 British nationals. Over 200 bodies have been recovered, though it remains uncertain how many were passengers and how many were on the ground.
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From his hospital bed, Ramesh recalled what happened just moments after take-off.
The lights inside the plane “started flickering,” he said.
Within seconds, he said it felt as though the aircraft was “stuck in the air.”
“The lights started flickering green and white…suddenly slammed into a building and exploded.”
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner collided with a structure used as living quarters for doctors at Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Medical College and Civil Hospital.
Ramesh said he was in disbelief that he had survived.
“I saw people dying in front of my eyes – the air hostesses, and two people I saw near me,” he said.
“For a moment, I felt like I was going to die too, but when I opened my eyes and looked around, I realised I was alive.
“I still can’t believe how I survived. I walked out of the rubble.”
