CNN
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It seemed impossible, but shortly after news broke that an Air India flight had crashed in the city of Ahmedabad, video started circulating on social media showing a man walking from the scene in a bloodstained shirt.
Then, it emerged there was one survivor: a British national of Indian origin, identified as Vishwash Kumar Ramesh by the Hindustan Times.
“Thirty seconds after takeoff, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly,” it quoted him as saying in an interview at the hospital where he was being treated.
He said he had been visiting family and was returning to the UK with his brother, who had been sitting in a different row. He didn’t know if his brother had survived, he said.
Air India later confirmed that of the 242 people on board the flight, 241 had died, making Ramesh the sole survivor.
His cousin Ajay Valgi told reporters in Leicester, England, that Ramesh had called his family to tell them he’s “fine,” adding that they were upset about his brother and all of the others who died.
A doctor told CNN that Ramesh’s condition was “not very critical” and that he could be released in the next couple of days.
“He has some blood in the images, but he’s not very badly injured. He is very comfortable and under strict observation, no issues,” said Dr. Rajnish Patel, professor and head of surgery at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.
Indian news outlets have shared a photo of Ramesh’s boarding pass, which indicates that he was in seat 11A of the flight, in the emergency exit row, just in front of the plane’s left wing. CNN hasn’t independently confirmed the veracity of the photo.
CNN safety analyst and former US Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector David Soucie expressed surprise that someone seated at that part of the plane would survive such a crash.
That seat is “right where the spar of the wing would go under and it would be a solid place for the aircraft to hit the ground, but as far as survivability above it, that is incredibly surprising,” he told CNN.
Ramesh told Indian broadcaster Doordarshan that he escaped through a small space near the door by his seat. He said his hand was burned by the flames as he fled from the aircraft.
“I don’t know how I managed to escape,” Ramesh said, adding that he saw other passengers die in front of him.
“For some time, I thought I was also going to die. But when I opened my eyes, I realised I was alive and I tried to unbuckle myself from the seat and escape from where I could,” he said.
Ramesh’s survival was described as miraculous by a British member of parliament.
“It’s nothing short of a miracle. I have reached out to the family and I’m choosing to respect their privacy at this trying time. But as you may have picked up … one of his brothers was also on that flight who sadly didn’t survive,” Shivani Raja, member of parliament for Leicester East, told CNN’s Max Foster on Thursday.
People inside the BJ Medical College and Hospital hostel were also killed when the plane crashed into it, a senior doctor at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, where a majority of the dead and injured people were taken, told CNN.
The doctor added that the death toll is likely to rise.
Earlier Thursday, Swapnil Bhalodia of the Indian Medical Association Medical Students Network said at least three medical students had died in the crash and another 30 were injured.
The plane was headed for London’s Gatwick airport and was carrying Indian, British, Canadian and Portuguese nationals.
