At least one passenger did, incredibly, survive Thursday’s crash of Air India Flight 171, and without life-threatening injuries, the Hindustan Times reports. British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, lucid enough to speak from his hospital bed after suffering “impact injuries” to his chest, eyes, and feet, says he heard a loud noise before the plane suddenly dropped immediately after takeoff.
“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,” Ramesh told the Times. Sadly Ramesh likely lost his brother, 45 year-old Ajay, with whom Vishwash was returning home to the UK after visiting family in India, as Ajay was seated in another row. The Times’s article says Vishwash was in seat 11A, which would be the window seat in economy class on the left wing in a typical configuration. Pretty freaking random.