Air India crash survivor jumped out of emergency exit, police say

New Delhi — Ramesh Viswashkumar, the only known survivor of the 242 people aboard an Air India plane that crashed in Ahmedabad on Thursday, had been sitting near an emergency exit of the London-bound flight and managed to jump out, police said.

Speaking from his hospital bed, the 40-year-old told Indian media that he was a British national and was travelling to the UK with his brother after visiting family in India.

“When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me. Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital,” Viswashkumar told the Hindustan Times.

Social media footage broadcast on Indian news channels show a man in a bloodstained white T-shirt and dark pants limping along a street and being helped by a medic. The man has bruises on his face and a goatee, resembling photographs of Viswashkumar in hospital after the crash that were published by local media.

The video also shows people gathering around the man and asking him where the other passengers are; to which he replies, “they’re all inside”.

A photo of Viswashkumar’s boarding pass shown online by the Hindustan Times indicates he was seated in seat 11A of the plane bound for Gatwick Airport.

He told the paper his brother Ajay had been seated in a different row on the plane and asked for help to find him.

“He was near the emergency exit and managed to escape by jumping out the emergency door,” said Vidhi Chaudhary, a senior police officer in Ahmedabad, speaking about Viswashkumar.

A member of Viswashkumar’s family based in the UK, who requested anonymity, said by phone that he had survived and that the family was in touch with him, but declined to share further details.

Ajay Valgi, a cousin of Viswashkumar who lives in Leicester, told the BBC that Viswashkumar spoke by phone to confirm he was all right. “He only said that he was fine, nothing else,” Valgi said.

Valgi said the family had not heard anything about his brother. “We’re not doing well. We’re all upset,” he said.

The aircraft came down in a residential area during lunch hour, crashing onto a medical college hostel close to the airport in the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade. More than 290 people were killed in the crash. The dead included some on the ground.

Police said Viswashkumar was the sole passenger known so far to have survived but added that rescue operations were still ongoing.

“Chances are that there might be more survivors among the injured who are being treated in the hospital,” Chaudhary said.

Reuters