A lone survivor was found out of 242 passengers and crew on board the Air India flight that crashed near Ahmedabad airport on Thursday, said Police Commissioner GS Malik. His name is Ramesh Viswashkumar and his seat number was 11 A in the flight.
Speaking to ANI, the Ahmedabad Police Commissioner said that police found one survivor in seat 11A and he was found in the hospital who is undergoing treatment. “Cannot say anything about the number of deaths yet. The death toll may increase as the flight crashed in a residential area," he said.
Who is Ramesh Biswaskumar?
The survivor, undergoing treatment at the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, has been identified as a British national, who was returning to London after Gujarat visit.
"There were bodies all around me, there were pieces of the plane all around me. Someone took hold of me and put me in an ambulance," Ramesh was quoted by News18 as saying. Reports suggest that he has received “impact injuries” on his chest, eyes and feet.
Ramesh was travelling along with his brother
Ramesh Biswaskumar was travelling along with his brother, Ajay Kumar Ramesh (45). He stated that the trouble started within 30 seconds of the flight takeoff, adding that "it all happened so quickly."
In the meantime, Air India said out of 230 passengers, 169 were Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. The other 12 were two pilots and 10 crew members.
Air India plane crashes in Ahmedabad
An Ahmedabad-London Air India plane carrying 242 passengers and crew crashed into a medical college complex minutes after takeoff on Thursday, killing all except one member on board in one of the country’s worst air tragedies.
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.
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.
Pilot issue 'Mayday' distress call before crash
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.
Former Gujarat chief minister and BJP leader Vijay Rupani was among the passengers on the doomed flight to London’s Gatwick airport.
“The aircraft departed from Ahmedabad at 1339 IST (0809 UTC) from Runway 23. It gave a MAYDAY Call to ATC, but thereafter no response was given by the aircraft to the calls made by ATC,” according to a statement from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
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.
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