Aussie pilot's theory on how sole surviving Air India passenger escaped the crash - and his advice for travellers during the unthinkable
A former Qantas pilot believes the sole survivor of the Air India plane crash was able to escape the wreckage with his life due to being seated next to an emergency exit.
Air India flight 171 crashed moments after taking off from Ahmedabad in western India, bound for London 's Gatwick Airport, on Thursday afternoon local time.
Footage showed the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner carrying 242 passengers losing altitude seconds after takeoff and crashing into a medical college hostel.
Briton Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, miraculously survived the plane disaster, which killed at least 290 people including all the other passengers and crew onboard along with people on the ground.
Astonishing footage taken near the crash site showed Mr Ramesh with visible injuries hobbling away from the jet before he was rushed to hospital for treatment.
The 40-year-old, who lives in London with his wife and child, is being treated at a hospital in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad.
Mr Ramesh was seated in 11A, right next to the emergency door - which flew off when the plane hit the ground.
Former Qantas pilot David Oliver claimed it was remarkable Mr Ramesh was able to walk away from the wreckage relatively unscathed.
'Sitting above the wing, which contains a lot of fuel... how it was that he managed to get out and people around him were unable to only compounds the luck that he had to come away almost uninjured,' Mr Oliver told Weekend Sunrise on Saturday.
Mr Oliver said Mr Ramesh was 'very lucky, to be seated in row five, behind business class, and next to an emergency exit.
'He was very, very lucky to be seated there,' Oliver said.
'He was lucky that he just had that fleeting seconds to escape the aircraft before it burst into that fireball.'
When the plane crashed, Mr Ramesh's seat collapsed into the ground floor of the building, instead of the upper levels where the jet's main body was badly destroyed.
Mr Ramesh told reporters the emergency door had broken on impact and there was space outside the door where he was able to jump out and run before the plane burst into flames.
Mr Oliver explained the best way for passengers to increase their chances of survival during a plane crash was to listen to safety instructions.
He advised travellers to 'always wear your seatbelt and have it reasonably, firmly tightened in-flight'.
Another piece of advice was for passengers to wear suitable clothing while travelling on a plane.
'I think you've got to wear sensible clothing, bare skin going down an escape slide will give you burns,' Mr Oliver said.
'Maybe not as much as Lycra, so just be sensible about what you're wearing.
'No high-heeled shoes for the ladies. You don't want to puncture an escape slide if you're going out.
'But the important thing, listen to the safety instructions and always wear your seatbelt.'
The Indian government has launched an investigation to determine the exact cause around the fatal crash.
There was no news on Friday on the cause of the crash, or on efforts to retrieve the black boxes - the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
However, it's understood the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder has since been recovered from on top of the medical college hostel building.
Meanwhile, the flight data recorder was recovered from the rear end of the plane.
Both the recorders and other potential pieces of evidence are in the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau of India's possession.
The data from the recorders is expected to provide insight into the critical decisions pilots were making in the moments leading up to the crash.
Less than a minute after take-off, staff on the plane gave a mayday call to air traffic control, Indian civil aviation authorities said.
Indian civil aviation authorities have confirmed personnel on the plane placed a mayday call to air traffic control less than a minute after take-off.
FlightTracker24 said the plane careened towards the ground at a speed of approximately 475feet (or 145metres) per minute.
It is not yet known what caused the crash though US transportation secretary Sean Duffy has said there was 'no indication' of safety concerns with other planes of the same make - a 787-8 Dreamliner.
India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has initiated a probe into the disaster in line with global protocols set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, said Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu in a statement on social media.
The crash is believed to be the deadliest aviation tragedy since all 298 passengers on Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 died when the jet was shot down over East Ukraine in 2014.
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