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First Post
a day ago
- General
- First Post
Miracle survivor of Air India plane crash and other rare solo escapes from air disasters
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a 40-year-old British citizen of Indian origin, was the only survivor of the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad. Seated in 11A, he walked away from the wreckage in a bloodstained shirt, becoming the 'miraculous' sole survivor of the ill-fated flight. Over the years, there have been a few rare cases where only one or two people have survived air crashes. For example, 12-year-old Bahia Bakari lived through the 2009 crash of Yemenia Flight 626 read more Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a 40-year-old British citizen, was the only person to survive the crash. PTI/Reuters The Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad on Thursday killed everyone on board except one person. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh walked away from the tragedy in a bloodstained shirt, becoming the 'miraculous' sole survivor of the ill-fated flight. The Boeing 787-8, heading to London, went down soon after leaving Ahmedabad on Thursday. A total of 241 people were killed. Read Ahmedabad Plane Crash Live Updates According to the airline, there were 230 passengers: 169 were from India, 53 from the UK, seven from Portugal, and one from Canada. Along with them were two pilots and 10 crew members. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD ALSO READ | Ahmedabad plane crash: What brought down the London-bound Air India plane in 30 seconds? It is worth noting that, over the years, some air crashes have had just one or two people survive. In this piece, we take a look at a few such plane crashes from around the world where only one person survived. We will also touch upon the 1988 Ahmedabad crash involving Indian Airlines Flight 113. Let's take a look at some of them: Air India plane crash: How Vishwash Kumar Ramesh survived Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a 40-year-old British citizen, was the only person to survive the crash. He was pulled out from seat 11A and is now being treated at Civil Hospital in Asarwa, as per Ahmedabad Police Commissioner GS Malik. 'There were bodies all around me, there were pieces of the plane all around me. Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance," he told News18. Recalling what happened in the moments after takeoff, Vishwash said, 'Within 30 seconds, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly." On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited him in the hospital. Ramesh, who is of Indian origin, was flying back to the UK with his brother Ajay Kumar Rakesh. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD VIDEO | Ahmedabad Plane Crash: PM Modi meets Vishwaskumar Ramesh, the lone survivor who was onboard the ill-fated Air India flight AI-171, at the Civil Hospital. Vishwaskumar Ramesh was in '11A' seat of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner which was carrying 242 passengers and crew. He was… — Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) June 13, 2025 List of sole survivors in plane crashes across the world: A brief look 1. Bahia Bakari In June 2009, 12-year-old Bahia Bakari survived after Yemenia Flight 626 went down near the coast of Comoros, a country in southern Africa. She drifted in the Indian Ocean for hours without a life jacket and had little ability to swim. Today in 2009 Yemenia Flight 626, an Airbus A310-300, crashes into the Indian Ocean near Comoros, killing 152 of the 153 people on board. A 14-year-old girl named Bahia Bakari survives the crash — the painter flynn (@thepainterflynn) June 30, 2024 STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 2. Mohammed el-Fateh Osman Osman was only three when he lived through the crash of Sudan Airways flight SD39 in 2003. The Boeing 737, with 115 people on board, had taken off from Port Sudan and was headed for Khartoum. Osman was the only one found alive, discovered near a tree by a worker. 3. Vesna Vulovic She was working as a flight attendant when JAT Flight 367 exploded in the air in 1972. Vesna survived the fall from over 33,000 feet without a parachute, a record noted by Guinness World Records. She passed away in December 2016. 4. Cecelia Cichan At just four years old, Cecelia was the only one to survive the crash of Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in Michigan in August 1987. She was found under the wreckage and needed treatment for serious burns and broken bones. Her parents, brother, and 151 others on board were killed, along with two people on the ground, according to the FAA. 5. Juliane Koepcke Juliane, who was 17 at the time, survived when LANSA Flight 508 was struck by lightning and broke apart over Peru's Lima. She spent 11 days walking through the jungle before she was rescued. The most badass backstory I've ever read: 17 year-old Juliane Koepcke was sucked out of an airplane in 1971 after it was struck by a bolt of lightning. She fell 2 miles to the ground, strapped to her seat and survived after she endured 10 days in the Amazon Jungle. After ten… — Jagvar Art & Games (@JagvarGames) July 20, 2024 6. Youcef Djillali On 6 March 2003, Air Algérie Flight 6289 had trouble with its left engine just after take-off from a city in the Sahara. The plane, which had 97 passengers and six crew on board, crashed and caught fire. Everyone on the aircraft died, except 28-year-old Algerian soldier Youcef Djillali, who had been sitting in the last row. ALSO READ | A Manipuri airhostess, a Kerala nurse… The victims of the Ahmedabad plane crash How 2 people survived Indian Airlines flight's crash in 1988 The recent Air India Boeing 787 crash has reminded many of the Indian Airlines Flight 113 accident that took place in 1988, as the aircraft was preparing to land at Ahmedabad Airport (AMD). As per reports, the Boeing 737-200 (VT-EAH), which had taken off from Mumbai, crashed while trying to land in low visibility. It struck trees and a high-tension pole around 2.5 km from runway 23. Out of the 135 people on board, 133 lost their lives in the crash. One of the two survivors was Ashok Agarwal, a textile businessman. He lost his 22-year-old wife and their 11-month-old daughter, Ruhi, in the accident. In 2020, Agarwal was found dead at his home in Prahladnagar, Ahmedabad. A police officer later confirmed that the postmortem showed he had died of a cardiac arrest. The second survivor was Vinod Rewa Shankar Tripathi. The crash happened on 19 October 1988. Among the 135 on board, 129 were passengers and six were part of the crew. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Investigators later said the crash was a case of controlled flight into terrain caused by errors made by both the pilot and air traffic control in foggy weather.
Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- General
- Sydney Morning Herald
What survivors of commercial plane crashes have in common – and only some of it is luck
'Miracle girl' Bahia Bakari, the sole survivor of doomed Yemenia Flight 626, notably survived its 2009 crash into the Indian Ocean by clinging to a piece of aircraft wreckage, something she was able to do because she happened to have been ejected from the Airbus A310 as it crashed. The four survivors of Japan Airlines Flight 123, which killed 520 people after crashing into Mount Osutaka in August 1985, were all seated in the last seven rows of the aircraft. That happened to be the only part that remained intact after impact. Which part of the plane that remains intact in the event of a crash – and if you're in it – may be luck of the draw, but in the case of Japan Airlines Flight 516, a major factor in the survival of all 379 occupants after it collided with a Coast Guard plane at Haneda Airport was its efficient evacuation process. American journalist Amanda Ripley's extensive disaster reporting helped Time win more than one award – and it also formed a strong basis for her book The Unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes – and why. What Ripley had discovered over the years was how much understanding behavioural psychology was crucial to the survival of humans when disaster strikes, and how much it's been overlooked. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn – if your body knows instinctively what to do, Ripley argues, then it may be able to cut through in times of extreme distress. 'The brain loves body memory,' writes Ripley, who highlights the efficacy of 'dress rehearsals' of fires in house and workplace survival rates. 'It is much better to stop, drop, and roll than to talk about stopping, dropping, and rolling.' Loading In an unfamiliar and somewhat temporary environment like a commercial plane, conducting a disaster drill as a passenger is easier said than done. But Ripley highlights how making a habit of counting the rows between your seat and the nearest emergency exit on every plane you board – should you need to rely on senses other than sight – is essential. Crew, after all, are given a 90-second time limit to evacuate all passengers before flames, and smoke, become fatal for those inside the plane, some of whom may be trapped by their own paralysing fear, or others who are clogging the aisle trying to retrieve their belongings in shock. Not one of Japan Airlines Flight 516's occupants exited with hand luggage. Which is the safest seat on a commercial flight? There is no magic seat that protects individual passengers; however, there is some data to show that there are safer and less safe seats in the event of a crash. Incomplete data from the American Federal Aviation Administration between 1985 and 2000 was analysed by Time, which found that sitting in the back of a plane was generally safer, fulfilling the urban myth that first-class passengers face the brunt of a crash's impact. Middle seats have also been found to have the lowest fatality rate, though there are questions of situational advantage, as in some crashes having an aisle seat can mean a quicker evacuation. It should be noted, however, that not all crash data reports seat numbers against passenger fatalities, so a complete analysis is difficult to perform. Is there a way to tell if an airline is at higher risk of a crash? Despite 2025 being one of the deadliest years on record for civil aviation, commercial aircraft accidents are still considered extremely rare today. Of course, some airlines and countries have a worse record than others, and there are several resources flyers can use. Qantas, recently voted the world's second-safest airline for 2025 on behind Air New Zealand, has never had a fatal jet airline accident. Air India didn't make top 25 list when it was released earlier this year, and currently has an air safety star rating of just four stars out of seven, factoring Friday's mass fatalities. Loading At the time of writing, Air India also does not feature among the banned carriers on the European Union Air Safety List (ASL) – an internationally recognised and frequently updated list of air carriers from non-EU nations banned from operating to, in and from the EU due to not meeting necessary international safety standards. The list was last updated on June 3, before the crash took place. Both the reviews and the ASL can be used as reference guides for flyers. The ASL is a particularly good resource for anyone considering using a foreign carrier for the first time, according to RMIT University aerospace engineering and aviation expert Chrystal Zhang. 'It's definitely one of the very reliable resources for anyone who wants to check the [carrier's] safety performance and capability of the government [to manage] safety performance,' said Zhang. 'It is one of the purposes they developed that list.' The banned or partially banned airlines are determined based on information gathered by aviation safety experts from all the EU member states and the European Commission, including assessment of both the individual airline and its associated governing authorities. 'They would determine whether the carriers have valid, appropriate safety management systems in place to satisfy the EU's requirements … then they would check the capability of the government agency – in [the Yeti Airlines] case the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal – to establish to what extent they're capable of overseeing the overall management system of their aviation sector,' said Zhang. While Australia doesn't have an equivalent ban list in place, the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) regulates who gets an Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) to operate safely in Australia. 'This means any Australian airline will be safe,' said University of Sydney aviation expert Professor Rico Merkert. 'Foreign carriers are not permitted to fly into Australian airspace until they receive a Foreign Aircraft Air Operator's Certificate (CASA). As such, I feel in safe hands.' Which airlines are the safest? Air New Zealand is ranked the safest on with Qantas following in an 'extremely close' second place. According to the group, rankings are based on a number of categories, including the number of serious incidents in the last two years, fleet size and age, fatalities, and pilot skills and training. Loading Airlines are balanced in their ranking to ensure that proportionality is considered. 'An airline operating only 100 aircraft experiencing three incidents raises greater concern than an airline with 800 aircraft experiencing six incidents,' said the group. 'Another critical factor is how incidents are managed. While incidents occur daily across the aviation industry, the expertise of pilots and crew often determines whether an event remains an incident or escalates into a tragedy.' The group also said that incidents are sometimes the fault of the plane manufacturer, rather than the airline, and that is taken into consideration. Air India Flight 171 marks the first hull loss for a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner since the type of aircraft began operating in 2011.
The Age
a day ago
- General
- The Age
What survivors of commercial plane crashes have in common – and only some of it is luck
'Miracle girl' Bahia Bakari, the sole survivor of doomed Yemenia Flight 626, notably survived its 2009 crash into the Indian Ocean by clinging to a piece of aircraft wreckage, something she was able to do because she happened to have been ejected from the Airbus A310 as it crashed. The four survivors of Japan Airlines Flight 123, which killed 520 people after crashing into Mount Osutaka in August 1985, were all seated in the last seven rows of the aircraft. That happened to be the only part that remained intact after impact. Which part of the plane that remains intact in the event of a crash – and if you're in it – may be luck of the draw, but in the case of Japan Airlines Flight 516, a major factor in the survival of all 379 occupants after it collided with a Coast Guard plane at Haneda Airport was its efficient evacuation process. American journalist Amanda Ripley's extensive disaster reporting helped Time win more than one award – and it also formed a strong basis for her book The Unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes – and why. What Ripley had discovered over the years was how much understanding behavioural psychology was crucial to the survival of humans when disaster strikes, and how much it's been overlooked. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn – if your body knows instinctively what to do, Ripley argues, then it may be able to cut through in times of extreme distress. 'The brain loves body memory,' writes Ripley, who highlights the efficacy of 'dress rehearsals' of fires in house and workplace survival rates. 'It is much better to stop, drop, and roll than to talk about stopping, dropping, and rolling.' Loading In an unfamiliar and somewhat temporary environment like a commercial plane, conducting a disaster drill as a passenger is easier said than done. But Ripley highlights how making a habit of counting the rows between your seat and the nearest emergency exit on every plane you board – should you need to rely on senses other than sight – is essential. Crew, after all, are given a 90-second time limit to evacuate all passengers before flames, and smoke, become fatal for those inside the plane, some of whom may be trapped by their own paralysing fear, or others who are clogging the aisle trying to retrieve their belongings in shock. Not one of Japan Airlines Flight 516's occupants exited with hand luggage. Which is the safest seat on a commercial flight? There is no magic seat that protects individual passengers; however, there is some data to show that there are safer and less safe seats in the event of a crash. Incomplete data from the American Federal Aviation Administration between 1985 and 2000 was analysed by Time, which found that sitting in the back of a plane was generally safer, fulfilling the urban myth that first-class passengers face the brunt of a crash's impact. Middle seats have also been found to have the lowest fatality rate, though there are questions of situational advantage, as in some crashes having an aisle seat can mean a quicker evacuation. It should be noted, however, that not all crash data reports seat numbers against passenger fatalities, so a complete analysis is difficult to perform. Is there a way to tell if an airline is at higher risk of a crash? Despite 2025 being one of the deadliest years on record for civil aviation, commercial aircraft accidents are still considered extremely rare today. Of course, some airlines and countries have a worse record than others, and there are several resources flyers can use. Qantas, recently voted the world's second-safest airline for 2025 on behind Air New Zealand, has never had a fatal jet airline accident. Air India didn't make top 25 list when it was released earlier this year, and currently has an air safety star rating of just four stars out of seven, factoring Friday's mass fatalities. Loading At the time of writing, Air India also does not feature among the banned carriers on the European Union Air Safety List (ASL) – an internationally recognised and frequently updated list of air carriers from non-EU nations banned from operating to, in and from the EU due to not meeting necessary international safety standards. The list was last updated on June 3, before the crash took place. Both the reviews and the ASL can be used as reference guides for flyers. The ASL is a particularly good resource for anyone considering using a foreign carrier for the first time, according to RMIT University aerospace engineering and aviation expert Chrystal Zhang. 'It's definitely one of the very reliable resources for anyone who wants to check the [carrier's] safety performance and capability of the government [to manage] safety performance,' said Zhang. 'It is one of the purposes they developed that list.' The banned or partially banned airlines are determined based on information gathered by aviation safety experts from all the EU member states and the European Commission, including assessment of both the individual airline and its associated governing authorities. 'They would determine whether the carriers have valid, appropriate safety management systems in place to satisfy the EU's requirements … then they would check the capability of the government agency – in [the Yeti Airlines] case the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal – to establish to what extent they're capable of overseeing the overall management system of their aviation sector,' said Zhang. While Australia doesn't have an equivalent ban list in place, the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) regulates who gets an Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) to operate safely in Australia. 'This means any Australian airline will be safe,' said University of Sydney aviation expert Professor Rico Merkert. 'Foreign carriers are not permitted to fly into Australian airspace until they receive a Foreign Aircraft Air Operator's Certificate (CASA). As such, I feel in safe hands.' Which airlines are the safest? Air New Zealand is ranked the safest on with Qantas following in an 'extremely close' second place. According to the group, rankings are based on a number of categories, including the number of serious incidents in the last two years, fleet size and age, fatalities, and pilot skills and training. Loading Airlines are balanced in their ranking to ensure that proportionality is considered. 'An airline operating only 100 aircraft experiencing three incidents raises greater concern than an airline with 800 aircraft experiencing six incidents,' said the group. 'Another critical factor is how incidents are managed. While incidents occur daily across the aviation industry, the expertise of pilots and crew often determines whether an event remains an incident or escalates into a tragedy.' The group also said that incidents are sometimes the fault of the plane manufacturer, rather than the airline, and that is taken into consideration. Air India Flight 171 marks the first hull loss for a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner since the type of aircraft began operating in 2011.
