Vishwas Kumar Ramesh, the lone survivor of the tragic Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and interacted with him. Modi reached Ahmedabad today and met the injured victims undergoing treatment at the hospital.
The prime minister visited the Ahmedabad civil hospital, where Ramesh is undergoing treatment, and enquired about his health. Modi later spoke with doctors at the hospital and enquired about the treatment given to the injured persons. Ramesh told DD News that the prime minister enquired about his health. “The prime minister asked about my well-being and how it all unfolded. I told him that I am okay,” Kumar said.
Ramesh was seated in row 11A, near an emergency exit on the aircraft when the crash occurred. “Even I can't believe how I came out of it alive. For a moment, I felt like I was going to die too. But when I opened my eyes and looked around, I realized I was alive. I still can't believe how I survived,” Ramesh told Hindustan Times recalling the accident.
“When the flight took off, within 5 to 10 seconds it felt like it was stuck in the air. Suddenly, the lights started flickering – green and white – then the plane rammed into some establishment that was there,” Kumar told the publication.
Kumar recollected that the section of the aircraft where he was seated remained grounded and did not crash onto the roof of the building, unlike the rest of the AI171 flight. “When I saw the exit, I thought I could come out. I tried, and I did. Maybe the people who were on the other side of the plane weren’t able to," Kumar said.
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“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,” Kumar recounted.
Except Kumar, all 241 onboard the London-bound Air India flight, which departed from Ahmedabad Airport at 1.39pm on Thursday, died in the fatal crash. The civil aviation ministry has ordered a probe into the crash.