Vishwash Kumar Ramesh has become a name that many will remember. He is the only person who survived the Air India plane crash that happened on June 12 in Ahmedabad. The flight, AI-171, was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner that crashed into the hostel building of BJ Medical College just 32 seconds after takeoff.
A new video now going viral shows Vishwash walking out of the smoke-filled crash site. In the video, he is wearing a white t-shirt and holding a phone in his left hand. Locals rushed to help him and took him to the hospital.
Vishwash, a 40-year-old British citizen of Indian origin, was sitting in seat 11A, right next to the emergency exit. He shared his experience in an interview with Doordarshan.
"I don't know how I came out of it alive," he said.
"For a while, I thought I was about to die. But when I opened my eyes, I saw I was alive. And I opened my seat belt and got out of there. The airhostess and aunty uncle all died before my eyes."
He said the emergency door came off during the crash, which allowed him to escape.
When asked if he landed on the hostel building, he said,
"No, I was closer to the ground, the ground floor, where there was space. So I came out from there. The building wall was on the opposite side, and I do not think anyone was able to come out that way."
Describing the moment of the crash, he said,
"A minute after the take-off, it felt like the plane had got stuck. Then green and white lights came on. They (the pilots) tried to raise the plane, but it went full speed and crashed into the building."
Out of the 242 people on board, including former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, 241 died. DNA testing is being done to identify the bodies and hand them over to their families.