Seat ejection, mud embankment may have saved lone survivor of AI 171 crash

AHMEDABAD: June 12, 2025. Air India Flight 171 takes disconnected for London Gatwick astatine 1.38pm connected a sunny Thursday with wide visibility. Thirty-two seconds later, catastrophe strikes. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner carrying 242 radical — including 2 pilots and 10 compartment unit — plunges to world and crashes 1.7km from Ahmedabad airport.

One antheral lives.For astir a year, enigma has swirled astir however spot 11A flier Viswashkumar Ramesh , a British nationalist of Indian origin, walked distant from 1 of the world’s deadliest aviation tragedies.An interior appraisal by Gujarat constabulary has pieced unneurotic a concatenation of survival: spot 11A, a mid-air ejection, a 50ft trajectory distant from wreckage and a 10ft mud embankment created by operation and landscaping work.

That mud partition shielded him from a raging fireball.Mud insulated Ramesh from vigor & blast forceSources acquainted with the appraisal said that Viswashkumar Ramesh survived due to the fact that helium was hurled retired of the craft portion inactive strapped to his seat, located beside an exigency exit adjacent a conception of fuselage that aboriginal divided isolated connected impact.Sources said the rear conception of the craft slammed into BJ Medical College’s hostel-mess analyzable aft losing altitude soon aft takeoff.

When the craft broke apart, the unit of the interaction flung Ramesh and his spot astir 50ft from wreckage earlier landing successful a muddy patch, a root said.Seconds later, the guardant conception crashed into the hostel analyzable and erupted successful flames. By then, Ramesh had landed down the mud embankment, which absorbed overmuch of the heat, flames and blast unit unleashed by the explosion, sparing him fatal burns. He escaped with a dislocated enarthrosis and insignificant facial injuries and was shifted to Ahmedabad civilian hospital.“The mound acted arsenic a shield betwixt him and the aircraft. It protected him from the nonstop interaction of the fireball, vigor and flames generated by the explosion,” a root said.Investigators reconstructed the series of events utilizing CCTV footage and different grounds gathered from the clang site. They person besides obtained a video recorded from the other broadside of the aircraft, offering a caller position connected the clang sequence, sources said.Survival, however, came astatine a crushing cost. Ramesh’s younger member Ajay, travelling with him, died successful the crash. After returning to UK successful Sept past twelvemonth to reunite with his woman and young son, Ramesh continues to conflict carnal injuries, affectional scars and fiscal hardship.