Brit sole survivor of Air India crash admitted to family: ‘I don’t know how I’m alive’

The sole survivor of Air India flight AI171 which crashed and killed more than 200 people on board has told his family ‘I don’t know how I’m alive’. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, along with 53 other British nationals, was one of the 242 aboard the plane that crashed near Ahmedabad airport on Thursday afternoon. Air India confirmed that 241 people died in the crash. Vishwash was sitting in seat 11A and is now in hospital. Vishwash phoned his family seconds after the plane crash, telling them ‘I don’t know how I’m alive’, his brother Nayan Kumar Ramesh told Sky News (Picture: AFP)

Nayan said their father was on the phone to Vishwash while the plane was still on the runway, who commented ‘we’re going to take off soon’. Two minutes later, their father received a video call from Vishwash, saying the plane had crashed and he had survived. Vishwash was in India for a few days, visiting his family and was going back to the UK with his brother Ajay Kumar Ramesh, 45 (Picture: Joseph Walshe/SWNS)

Nayan explained: ‘He video called my dad as he crashed and said “Oh the plane’s crashed. I don’t know where my brother is. I don’t see any other passengers. I don’t know how I’m alive – how I exited the plane”.’ Nayan added he was supposed to pick his brother up from Gatwick Airport when the plane landed on Thursday evening, ahead of a family gathering this weekend. ‘I’ve got no words to describe it,’ he said. ‘It’s a miracle that he survived – but what about the other miracle for my other brother. We’re devastated. I’m scared to fly now – to even sit on a plane’ (Picture: Getty)

Footage shared on social media showed Vishwash limping away from the wreckage and being led towards emergency services. He told local media: ‘Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly. 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. Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital’ (Picture: Harvey Hollingsbee)

He said he received ‘impact injuries’ on his chest, eyes and feet. The Gatwick-bound flight – a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner – took off at 1.38pm local time and crashed within minutes, and burst into flames. Photos showed black smoke and a fire near the crash site near Ahmedabad’s airport, the largest city in Gujarat, western India. Among the nationalities onboard are 53 British nationals, 169 Indians, seven Portuguese and one Canadian (Picture: AFP)

It is unclear what has caused the accident but the crash site is near accommodation for medical students at a nearby university. Up to 60 of those students are feared to be dead. Air India said in a statement: ‘Flight AI171, operating Ahmedabad-London Gatwick, was involved in an incident today, June 12, 2025. At this moment, we are ascertaining the details and will share further updates at the earliest on our website’ (Picture: Shutterstock)

The tracking website Flightradar24 received the last signal from the aircraft at 625 feet after takeoff. The aircraft was piloted by captain Sumeet Sabharwal, who had 8,200 hours of flying experience and co-pilot Clive Kundar, who had 1,100 hours of flying experience. There were also 10 crew on board. He issued a mayday call then stopped responding and crashed immediately afterwards, according to India’s aviation regulator, DGCA (Picture: CISF)