A British survivor of the Air India plane crash has described the horror of watching people “dying in front of my eyes”. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, said he thought he was dead when the plane slammed into a building and exploded, before realising he was alive and escaping through an opening in the fuselage.
Speaking from his hospital bed, Ramesh told DD News that shortly after takeoff the aircraft felt “stuck in the air” and lights began flickering green and white. “It suddenly slammed into a building and exploded,” he said. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner struck a medical college on Thursday, killing all 241 other people on board.
Ramesh, who has lived in the UK for 20 years, was returning from a visit to family in India. He said: “I managed to unbuckle myself, used my leg to push through that opening, and crawled out. 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.”
His brother, Nayan Kumar Ramesh, 27, speaking outside the family home in Leicester, said they were “devastated” and that Vishwash had “no idea” how he escaped. Dr Dhaval Gameti, who treated Ramesh, said he was “disorientated, with multiple injuries all over his body” but appeared to be out of danger.
The crash is one of the deadliest in terms of British nationals killed. Among the victims are believed to be a British couple, Fiongal and Jamie Greenlaw-Meek, and Akeel Nanabawa, his wife Hannaa, and their four-year-old daughter Sara. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, visited the crash site and spoke to Ramesh in hospital. Investigations into the cause are ongoing.
