Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, the 40-year-old British-Indian who miraculously survived the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, is still dazed and says he is not clear how he survived. This morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited him at the Ahmedabad hospital where he is admitted.
“I don’t know how I came out of it alive,” he told Doordarshan shortly after.
“For a while, I thought I was about to die. But when I opened my eyes, I saw I was alive. And I opened my seat belt and got out of there. The airhostess and aunty uncle all died before my eyes,” he said.
Mr Kumar’s seat was 11A, right next to the emergency door, which apparently came off when the plane struck the hostel.
Asked if he landed on the hostel, he said, “No, I was closer to the ground, the ground floor, where there was space. So I came out from there. The building wall was on the opposite side and I do not think anyone was able to come out that way”.
The fire started moments later and it singed his arm. “In front of my eyes two airhostess…” he said, choking, relieving the horrific moments seared in his mind.
Asked how the crash came about, he said, “A minute after the take-off, it felt like the plane had got stuck. Then green and white lights came on. They (the pilots) tried to rise the plane but it went full speed and crashed into the building”.