Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, the sole survivor of the catastrophic Air India Flight AI-171 crash in Ahmedabad, described his miraculous escape, saying, “I don’t know how I survived.”
The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, carrying 242 people, crashed into a medical college building near Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport minutes after take-off on Thursday, killing over 200 individuals.
Ramesh, a 40-year-old British Indian national, was seated in 11A, next to an emergency exit. Speaking to a Doordarshan journalist, a visibly shaken Ramesh recalled, “It all unfolded before my eyes.”
Still reeling from the trauma, he explained that he escaped the burning wreckage through a damaged emergency door, witnessing a “blast” immediately after exiting. Ramesh had travelled to India to visit family, accompanied by his brother, whose fate remains unclear.
On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Ramesh, who is receiving treatment in the C7 ward of Ahmedabad’s Civil Hospital, where 25 others injured in the crash are also admitted.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who met Ramesh and inspected the crash site on Thursday, noted, “The silver lining is that one person survived this tragedy.” Footage on television and social media showed Ramesh, bloodied in a white t-shirt and dark trousers, limping to an ambulance with medical assistance.
According to reports, Ramesh is married with a son. The crash claimed 241 lives, including 168 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese nationals, and one Canadian national. Among the ground victims were four MBBS students and a doctor’s wife at the BJ Medical College complex, located just outside the airport perimeter.
Seperately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani’s family in Ahmedabad on Friday, describing the former chief minister as “humble, hardworking, and deeply committed to the BJP’s ideology”. Modi expressed condolences for Rupani’s death in the crash, which claimed 241 lives.
On Friday, Modi chaired a review meeting with senior Gujarat government officials at the GujSail building near the airport, where he was briefed on the sequence of events following the tragedy, which killed 265 people, including ground victims. He issued directives to officials, having earlier visited the crash site and the city civil hospital.
Modi shared his grief on X, stating, “We are devastated by the air tragedy in Ahmedabad. The sudden and heart-wrenching loss of so many lives is beyond words. My condolences to the bereaved families. We share their pain and understand the enduring void left behind. Om Shanti.”