AHMEDABAD, India (BN24) — A British-Indian man who survived the devastating Air India Flight AI171 crash in Ahmedabad has described the chaos and carnage following the aircraft’s impact, as authorities confirmed he was the lone known survivor in a tragedy that claimed numerous lives.
According to NDTV, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British national of Indian origin, was identified by local police as the only survivor from the Boeing 787 Dreamliner that crashed shortly after takeoff from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport on Thursday. The flight was en route to London’s Gatwick Airport with 244 people onboard.
Ramesh, who has lived in London for the past 20 years, told The Hindustan Times that approximately 30 seconds after takeoff, he heard a loud explosion. “It all happened so quickly,” he said from a hospital bed. “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.”
The survivor said he suffered multiple injuries to his chest, eyes and feet. He was reportedly seated apart from his brother Ajay Kumar Ramesh, whose condition remains unconfirmed.
Video circulating on social media appears to show a man limping away from the wreckage and being assisted by emergency personnel near the Meghani Nagar crash site. Authorities have not confirmed the identities of other victims.
Ahmedabad Police Commissioner Sanjay Srivastava said Ramesh was found conscious amid the debris and rushed to a local hospital. His account provides the first eyewitness narrative from within the doomed flight, which crashed into a residential neighborhood just five minutes after takeoff.
In a video statement released Thursday evening, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson expressed “deep sorrow” over the incident and pledged full support for victims and their families. “This is a difficult day for all of us at Air India,” he said. “Our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of our passengers, crew members, their families, and loved ones.”
Wilson confirmed that injured passengers — including the sole survivor — had been transported by emergency responders to nearby hospitals. “Investigations will take time, but anything we can do now, we are doing,” he added.
The crash of Flight AI171 marks the first fatal accident involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and triggered a massive emergency response from India’s civil aviation and disaster relief agencies. The cause of the crash is under investigation by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and other national and international authorities.
