The sole survivor of the devastating Air India crash has described the exact moment he realised the plane was going down. Vishwash Ramesh said he noticed just moments into the flight that it felt as if something were “stuck”, and the lights started flickering.
Flight AI 171 bound for Gatwick was in the air for less than 40 seconds before it plunged into the densely populated neighbourhood of Ahmedabad in India, killing 279 people, including Vishwash’s brother, Ajay. The father of one told The Sun: “Everything happened in seconds. I realised we were going down. The aircraft wasn’t gaining altitude and was just gliding.”
He continued: “After that, the plane seemed to speed up, before it suddenly slammed into a building and exploded. Everything was visible in front of my eyes when the crash happened.
“I too thought that I was about to die, but then I opened my eyes and realised that I was still alive.”
From his seat in 11A, Vishwash said he landed closer to the ground, and there was space to climb out through a broken door to safety, but that he still doesn’t understand how he made it out alive.
The 40-year-old managed to stagger out of the compound as flames engulfed the plane and a hostel where people had been eating lunch.
He is now struggling with intense survivor’s guilt about his brother Ajay, and thinks that if they had been sitting together, they both might have survived.
Vishwash had tried to pick two seats together, but by the time he came to choose, other passengers were sitting in part of the row, so they had to sit across the aisle from each other, with Ajay in 11J.
He added: “But I lost my brother in front of my eyes. So now I am constantly thinking ‘Why can’t I save my brother?”
The 40-year-old is recovering in his family’s home village of Diu, on the east coast of India. There, he and his brother Ajay ran a small fishing business, which they had inherited from their dad.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner took off from Ahmedabad, India, on Thursday at 1.39pm local time (8.09am GMT). Just moments later, the pilot, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, 55, radioed air traffic control to make a mayday call.
The plane then lost altitude before it crashed into buildings and exploded into flames. An investigation led by Indian officials with assistance from the UK and US is ongoing.