Ramesh Viswashkumar, the sole known survivor among the 242 people aboard the London-bound Air India flight that crashed near Ahmedabad airport shortly after takeoff on Thursday, was seated near an emergency exit and managed to jump out, according to police.
Speaking from his hospital bed, the 40-year-old told Indian media that he was a British national and was travelling to Britain with his brother after visiting family in India.
“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,” Viswashkumar told the Hindustan Times.
It was not clear whether Viswashkumar managed to jump out before the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft made impact.
Social media footage shown on Indian news channels showed a man in a bloodstained white t-shirt and dark pants limping on a street and being helped by a medic. The man had bruises on his face and a goatee beard, resembling photographs of Viswashkumar in the hospital after the crash that were published by local media.
Reuters could not immediately verify the video, in which people gathered around the man and asked him where the other passengers were, to which he replied, “They’re all inside”.
Seat Number 11A
A photo of Viswashkumar’s boarding pass, shown online by the Hindustan Times, showed that he was seated in seat 11A of the plane bound for Gatwick Airport.
He told the paper his brother Ajay had been seated in a different row on the plane and asked for help to find him.
“He was near the emergency exit and managed to escape by jumping out the emergency door,” said Vidhi Chaudhary, a senior police officer in Ahmedabad, speaking about Viswashkumar.
A member of Viswashkumar’s family based in Britain, who requested anonymity, told Reuters over the phone that he had survived and that the family was in touch with him, but declined to share further details.
Ajay Valgi, a cousin of Viswashkumar who lives in Leicester, central England, told the BBC that Viswashkumar spoke by phone to confirm he was all right. “He only said that he was fine, nothing else,” Valgi said.
Valgi said the family had not heard anything about his brother. “We’re not doing well. We’re all upset,” he said.
Viswashkumar is married with one child, a boy, he added.
Fatal Crash
The aircraft came down in a residential area, crashing into a medical college hostel outside the airport during lunch time, in the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade.
More than 240 people were killed in the crash. The dead included some on the ground. Police said a previously shared death toll of 294 was wrong due to some double-counted body parts.
In a statement, Tata Group-owned Air India confirmed 241 of the 242 people on board the flight had been killed in the crash, and there was a sole survivor.
Police said Viswashkumar was the sole passenger known so far to have survived, but added that rescue operations were still ongoing.
“Chances are that there might be more survivors among the injured who are being treated in the hospital,” Chaudhary said.
(With inputs from Reuters)
