For 40-year-old Vishwas Kumar Ramesh, survival is no triumph — it is a wound that refuses to heal. He lived through what no human should experience, walking out of the wreckage of Air India flight AI-171 while 260 others never made it home. The world may call him fortunate; he does not feel that way.
The London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport on June 12, slamming into a hostel block at BJ Medical College.
All 241 passengers and crew, and 19 people on the ground, lost their lives — except Ramesh, who had been seated in seat 11A beside an emergency exit. His younger brother Ajay, only a few seats away, was among those who perished.
Eyewitnesses recall a deafening blast followed by a blazing fireball as the aircraft plunged into the hostel’s southern wing. Videos from the crash site later showed Ramesh stumbling away — dazed, covered in soot, and barely able to comprehend that he was still breathing.
He was rushed to Ahmedabad Civil Hospital under round-the-clock medical care. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited him the next morning. “I told him I don’t know how I lived. It all happened so fast,” Ramesh had said then. He was discharged on June 17 — the same day his brother’s remains, confirmed through DNA testing, were handed to the family.
Today, back in Leicester, a quiet grief envelopes his home. “Now I’m alone. I just sit in my room alone, not talking with my wife, my son. I just like to be alone in my house,” he told the BBC in a low voice, describing days spent in silence and nights without rest.
“My mum last four months, she is sitting every day outside the door, not talking, nothing. I’m not talking to anyone else. I can’t talk about much. I’m thinking all night, I’m suffering mentally. Every day is painful for the whole family.”
Doctors have diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder. The physical pain lingers too. “When I walk, not walk properly, slowly, slowly, my wife helps,” he said. His cousin shared that he often wakes up startled in the night: “We took him to a psychiatrist.”
Air India, now under the Tata Group, has issued an interim compensation of £21,500 (approximately ₹22 lakh). Ramesh accepted the amount, though his advisers have stressed it is far from adequate for the scale of loss and trauma.
“I’m the only one survivor. Still, I’m not believing. It’s a miracle,” he reflected softly. “I lost my brother as well. My brother is my backbone. The last few years, he was always supporting me.”
A preliminary report from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) indicates that fuel supply to both engines was cut off seconds after take-off, causing a complete loss of power.
Ramesh remains alive — but every day, he carries the weight of those who are not. His story is not one of escape, but endurance
