Dreamliner seemed stuck in the air before crash, survivor says
London: A British man is the sole survivor of the crash of Air India flight 171, which went down moments after take-off in Ahmedabad on Thursday, killing more than 240 people, in one of the world's deadliest aviation disasters in years and India's worst in almost two decades.
A second Air India flight turned around and made an emergency landing in Phuket on Friday when it received a bomb threat while en route to New Delhi, airport authorities said. Passengers were escorted off the plane.
From hospital, where he was being treated for burns and other injuries, Flight 171 survivor Viswash Kumar Ramesh told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he still could not believe he was alive.
Ramesh told India's national broadcaster during the meeting with Modi that the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner seemed to be stuck in the air for a few seconds after take-off. The lights started flickering green and white, and the plane, which was bound for London Gatwick Airport with 242 people from India, Britain, Portugal and Canada on board, seemed unable to gain height before it crashed.
He said the section of the plane where he was seated landed on the ground, rather than a building, and there was room for him to escape. He unfastened his seat belt and forced himself out of the plane.
'Maybe the people who were on the other side of the plane weren't able to,' he told the Hindustan Times. 'I don't know how I survived. I saw people dying in front of my eyes – the air hostesses, and two people I saw near me ... I walked out of the rubble.'
Investigators have started combing the wreckage of the plane to determine what caused it to plummet into a medical college in a residential area on Thursday, just seconds after leaving the runway.
Rescuers have recovered more than 200 bodies from the crash site – a hostel for doctors near the airport in the western city of Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat, which was strewn with debris and the remains of passengers. Smoke from the explosion was visible for kilometres, and parts of the aircraft, including its torn fuselage and tail marked 'VT-ANB', were seen embedded in the multi-storey building.
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7NEWS
an hour ago
- 7NEWS
India plane crash: Official death toll climbs to 270 as search teams find more bodies
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News.com.au
5 hours ago
- News.com.au
Death toll in India plane crash rises to at least 279
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Sydney Morning Herald
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- Sydney Morning Herald
Royal family honours Air India crash victims at Trooping the Colour
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