Air India crash survivor recounts horror: ‘When I got up, there were bodies all around me’

As families frantically searched for their loved ones at Ahmedabad’s Civil Hospital in Asarwa following the Air India crash, 40-year-old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh lay in the general ward, who claimed he survived the crash, recounting how he had survived the tragic accident.

A British national, Vishwash had returned to India briefly to visit his family and was en route back to the UK with his elder brother, 45-year-old Ajay Kumar Ramesh, when disaster struck. Speaking to Hindustan Times, he recalled, “Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly.”

Suffering from impact injuries to his chest, eyes, and feet, Vishwash described the chaos and devastation that followed the crash. “When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me,” he told HT, still clutching his boarding pass. He added that a bystander helped him into an ambulance that brought him to the hospital.

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Having lived in London for 20 years, Vishwash said his wife and child are currently there. His brother Ajay, who had been seated in a different row during the flight, remains unaccounted for. “We visited Diu. He was travelling with me and I couldn’t find him anymore. Please help me find him,” he pleaded.

An Ahmedabad-London Air India plane carrying 242 passengers and crew crashed into a medical college complex here minutes after takeoff on Thursday, possibly killing all on board in one of the country’s worst air tragedies.

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There was no official count of those killed even hours after the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (AI171) crashed in the city civil hospital and BJ Medical College near the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport and burst into a ball of fire.

As rescuers struggled to find survivors in the charred wreckage and pull out the injured, many of them with grievous burns, officials tried to assess the human magnitude of the disaster. Unofficial reports said chances of survival of those on board were remote and up to 25 people in the medical complex could also have died.

According to Air India, of the 230 passengers, 169 were Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. The other 12 were two pilots and 10 crew members.

The pilot of the twin-engine wide bodied aircraft issued a ‘Mayday’ distress call, denoting a full emergency, soon after takeoff at 1.39 pm, the Air Traffic Control at Ahmedabad said.

The search was also on for the aircraft’s black box – the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder – for clues to understand what happened in the last crucial moments.

The 11-year-old aircraft could be seen from miles away, losing altitude rapidly and combusting in a fiery blaze that sent plumes of thick black smoke spiralling up in the air.

The aircraft climbed just about 600-800 feet before plummeting to the ground almost immediately, aviation sources said.

Visuals from the wreckage area showed bodies being pulled out and the injured, many with burns, wheeled into the city civil hospital close by.

Eyewitnesses in Ahmedabad said the blaze was so intense that it led to several multi-storey buildings being burnt, trees singed and cars damaged. One image showed the snout of the plane crashing through the top floor of a building that appeared to be a dining area of the hostel of nurses and doctors.

Elsewhere too, there were scenes of complete devastation with mangled metal of the wreckage, snarls of tangled wire and smoke rising from burning embers.

This is the first crash involving the Boeing Dreamliner, feted for its advanced features. It is also India’s second biggest air disaster since 2020 when an Air India Express flight skidded off a wet runway while landing at Kozhikode in Kerala and split into two. Of the 190 people on board, 21, including two pilots, lost their lives.

Airport operations in Ahmedabad were temporarily suspended and resumed towards the evening.

The shock of the disaster echoed through political corridors in India and abroad with heads of states and others offering their condolences.