Lone survivors in plane crashes — Air India 171 among two dozen major disasters where one person beat the odds

Indian Express

21 hours ago

With 241 passengers and crew confirmed dead in the crash of Air India's Boeing 787 Dreamliner right outside Ahmedabad airport, one passenger miraculously survived and literally walked out of the wreckage that killed everybody else on board. While fatal air crashes with a sole survivor seem to defy all odds, there have been around two dozen instances in the past 80 years where 50 or more people died in a major crash and just one person made it out alive.
Among such crashes, the Air India flight carrying 242 people from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, which went down on Thursday, leads with the highest death toll. With only one survivor confirmed so far—a 38-year-old British national of Indian origin—authorities are conducting DNA tests to identify the victims.
'The aircraft crashed shortly after take-off. We regret to inform that, of the 242 aboard, there are 241 confirmed fatalities. The sole survivor is being treated in a hospital,' Air India posted on X early Friday.
Beating the odds
In August 1987, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82 carrying 149 passengers and six crew crashed shortly after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport due to pilot error. All but one perished—a 4-year-old girl, Cecelia Cichan, who survived with severe burns and multiple fractures.
Decades later, in 2013, CNN released 'Sole Survivor', a documentary profiling Cichan and three other lone survivors of major air crashes. Among them was 12-year-old Bahia Bakari, who lived through the 2009 Yemenia Airways crash that killed 152 people. She was found clinging to floating debris in the Indian Ocean by local fishermen and rescuers.
George Lamson Jr—also featured in the CNN documentary—was the sole survivor of a Lockheed L-188 Electra crash in 1985 that killed 70 people. Then just 17, Lamson was hurled from the aircraft in his seat as it broke apart into flames over a highway shortly after takeoff. The fourth lone survivor featured in the documentary, James Polehinke, was the first officer aboard a Bombardier CRJ100 that crashed in Kentucky in 2006, killing 49 people.
More recently, in March 2018, a Cubana de Aviación flight crashed shortly after takeoff near Havana, killing 112 people. Of the four initially found alive, three later died in hospital. The sole survivor, critically injured, spent nearly a year recovering and was discharged in May 2019.
Military crashes
There have also been instances of lone survivors in military plane crashes. In 1991, an Indonesian Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules crashed during takeoff in Jakarta due to an engine fire, killing 134 people on board and two on the ground. Only one man survived; one of the pilots was initially found alive but succumbed to his injuries later in the day.
In 2014, another C-130 Hercules — this time operated by the Algerian Air Force — crashed into a mountain in northwest Algeria while carrying soldiers and their families. The crash killed 77 people, with just one survivor, who was treated for head injuries.
One of the earliest recorded instances of a lone survivor in a major air crash occurred in 1959, when a Curtiss C-46 Commando operated by a commercial carrier crashed about a kilometre off the coast during a failed landing attempt in Argentina, killing 51 people. According to local reports, the sole survivor swam back to shore.
Aggam Walia is a Correspondent at The Indian Express, reporting on power, renewables, and mining. His work unpacks intricate ties between corporations, government, and policy, often relying on documents sourced via the RTI Act. Off the beat, he enjoys running through Delhi's parks and forests, walking to places, and cooking pasta. ... Read More