The survivor of the Air India Flight 171 crash Thursday revealed he miraculously survived by escaping through a broken emergency exit.
There have been 242 people on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, sure for London, that crashed shortly after takeoff within the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, smashing in a fiery blast right into a medical college hostel, killing and injuring more people on the bottom.
The plane crashed right into a hostel for the B.J. Medical College and Civil Hospital (BJMC). Because of this, 4 students at BJMC died, six relatives of resident doctors died and 24 are undergoing treatment, the Federation of All India Medical Associations (FAIMA) Doctors Association said Friday.
It was the worst aviation disaster in a decade. Ramesh Viswashkumar, 40, was the only person aboard the doomed flight to survive.
“I am unable to explain. Every thing was happening in my eye. I am unable to explain,” Viswashkumar, a British national of Indian origin, told DD News, an Indian state-owned broadcaster Friday.
Police said Viswashkumar was in seat 11A, near an emergency exit. Viswashkumar, visibly cut up from the crash, said he was in a position to escape moments before the blast when the emergency door broke.
“Emergency door is broken. My seat is broken. Then I see the space just a little bit and I’ll try to return out,” he told DD News. He was in a position to get out because the aircraft caught fire.
“Little bit of fireside, after I’m out, then blast,” he recalled.
Footage of the crash showed an enormous ball of fireside because the plane’s full fuel tanks exploded, filling the sky with thick black smoke.
Survivability is “extremely limited” in plane crashes just like the one which happened in Ahmedabad yesterday, said Trevor Bock, a security consultant at Aviation Safety Asia.
A big, heavy aircraft can be torn apart by the big amount of energy it carries because the plane hits the bottom, he said. “We’re talking 1000’s of kilograms of weight,” adding that the plane, which has just taken off, had “plenty of fuel.”
Viswashkumar explained that he and his brother had been staying in India for the last eight or nine months and he was sure back home to London, where his family lived.
Viswashkumar told Reuters in Hindi that inside a minute after takeoff, the plane felt prefer it got here to a standstill within the air and the green and white cabin lights turned on.
“I could feel engine thrust increasing to go up nevertheless it crashed with speed into the constructing,” he told Reuters.
He explained that the side of the plane he was on landed on the bottom floor of the hostel.
“I could see that there was space outside the aircraft, so when my door broke I attempted to flee through just a little space and I did. On the alternative side (of plane) was the constructing wall, so no person could have escaped. The plane crashed there. There was some space where I landed,” he said.
“I do not understand how I managed to flee. It was in front of my eyes that the air hostess and others (died),” he added.
Viswashkumar’s left hand was burned. An ambulance took him to a hospital where he stays in recovery.
He’s “doing well” but “psychologically disturbed” by the event, in response to the medical director of the Civil Hospital, where he’s being treated.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Viswashkumar within the hospital Friday.
Viswashkumar summed up his extraordinary survival in just a few words: “It’s miracle, the whole lot,” he told DD News.
Viswashkumar’s brother in the UK told Sky News, NBC News’ international partner, that “this can be a miracle that he survived.”
“But what other miracle for my other brother?” he said, referring to their third brother who was on the flight with Viswashkumar.
In total, there have been 230 passengers and 12 crew members on board, Air India said, and 241 were killed. Among the many passengers were 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, a Canadian national and 7 Portuguese nationals.
