Lone survivor of devastating Air India plane crash says

The only survivor of a fire plane crash that killed 260 people who lived in western India five months ago is back in England, but says his life has been turned upside down by the trauma, leaving him unable even to speak to his family.

Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, crashed into a building in Ahmedabad shortly after takeoff on June 13, killing 19 people on the ground and everyone on board the plane except the passenger in seat 11A, Viswash Kumar Ramesh.

With blood stains on his T-shirt and clutching his phone, Ramesh limped June 13 from the smoking wreckage of Flight 171 in complete shock. Five months later, he still doesn’t believe it.

“It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” Ramesh, a UK national whose native language is Gujarati, told News themezone partner BBC News. “Still, I don’t believe it, I’m just a survivor.”

His younger brother, Ajay, was among the 241 people who died on the plane. He was sitting a few seats away.

“I’m the luckiest man, but I also lost everything. My brother, for me, I lost my brother.”

Ramesh has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, is constantly haunted by the horrors of that day, and still suffers from physical injuries.

“It’s still very painful for me to explain what happened. I can’t say anything about it now,” he told the BBC. “Now I’m alone. I sit alone in my room, not talking to my wife or my son. I just like being alone in my house.”

News themezone was at the crash site in the days after India’s worst aviation disaster, and we pressed Air India officials to speak to the grieving families.

“The investigations will take time, but anything we can do now, we will do,” airline CEO Campbell Wilson said shortly after the crash. “We understand that people are eager for information… For now, our teams are working around the clock to support passengers, crew and their families, as well as investigators, in any way we can.”

However, Ramesh’s legal team says Air India has yet to provide adequate support and compensation. The airline made a provisional offer of less than $30,000.

Air India told News themezone in a statement that “support for Ramesh during what must have been an unimaginable period” remains its “absolute priority.”

The airline said it had requested to meet with him and would “continue to communicate and we hope to receive a positive response.”

The cause of the disastrous crash has not been confirmed, but a preliminary report released in July by India’s Aviation Accident Investigation Bureau said the cabin cut-off switches for fuel supply to both engines of the Boeing 787 had been activated, one after the other, within a second. which causes both engines to lose thrust.