The Impossible Escape: How One Man Survived a Catastrophic Air India Crash

Tony Cable, once a senior investigator for air crashes, has a simple piece of advice for Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, the only survivor of the Air India crash: “Buy a lottery ticket right now.”

The 40-year-old Briton escaped from the wreckage of flight AI171 after it crashed less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad en route to London. The crash killed 241 passengers and crew on board and many more on the ground.

His survival with minor injuries seemed impossible, yet attention turned to where he was seated on the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner—specifically in seat 11A. It was near an emergency exit, placed close to an area known as the “wing box,” which is one of the strongest parts of the plane’s fuselage.

About 30 seconds after the plane hit the buildings, Ramesh thought he had died. But when he realized he was still alive, he saw an opening in the fuselage. “I managed to unbuckle, pushed my leg through that gap, and crawled out,” he said. It was unclear whether this opening was a door or a rupture in the plane’s body.

“The plane was nose-up when it hit the buildings,” said Cable, a former senior air crash investigator with the UK Air Accidents Investigations Branch. “It probably broke open near this area, and luckily, he made it out without serious injury.”

The space in front of Ramesh’s seat, unlike rows with seats, may have given him more room to escape. This could mean that while others in front were crushed during impact, he avoided that fate.

Professor John McDermid from the University of York explains that his position at the front edge of the wing likely played a role. “There’s extra structure there to protect the fuselage,” he said.

McDermid suggests that the impact might have loosened the door enough for Ramesh to kick it open and escape. The external door was just ahead of him, so he didn’t have far to go to reach safety.

Before Ramesh could escape, he first had to survive the crash—an extremely unlikely event.

“If you have a crash like this, where the plane is full of fuel and crashes into buildings, survival chances are slim,” said Professor Ed Galea, an expert in fire safety and evacuation at the University of Greenwich. “It’s amazing anyone survived at all.”

He notes Ramesh’s luck: he survived the impact, was not badly hurt, and sat near an exit. Whether he used the in-flight exit or escaped through a rupture in the fuselage isn’t clear, but he was very close to an escape point.

Galea has studied plane crashes where people within five rows of a working emergency exit have a better chance of surviving than those farther away. He always recommends sitting within five rows of an exit.

Other passengers may have survived but were too hurt to move or weren’t near an exit. Those who didn’t brace for the crash could have hit their heads and lost consciousness. Ramesh, however, had no seats immediately in front of him, which may have helped.

While the plane’s structure likely helped Ramesh stay alive, he still had to move quickly. McDermid says if he didn’t get out fast, the fireball from the fuel might have trapped him.

The plane had enough fuel to reach London Gatwick, which probably ignited on impact. Galea explains Ramesh could have ended up just in front of the fireball if the fuel from the tanks spilled toward the front.

McDermid sums up, “He was very unlucky to be on that plane, but very lucky to escape.”