Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a 40-year-old British national, is being hailed as a living miracle after walking away from the wreckage of Air India Flight 171, which crashed in Ahmedabad shortly after takeoff on Thursday, June 12, 2025, killing at least 260 people, including several on the ground. Ramesh, who was seated in 11A, was seen limping away in a bloodied shirt toward an ambulance in video footage now circulating globally.
Authorities had initially declared that there were no survivors after the London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner exploded into flames shortly after departing Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. The aircraft, heavy with fuel for the long-haul flight to Gatwick Airport, slammed into a staff hostel near a major teaching hospital, killing residents and medical workers alongside passengers.
Despite the devastation, Gujarat’s Principal Health Secretary Dhananjay Dwivedi confirmed late Thursday that one passenger had miraculously survived and was receiving treatment. India’s Home Minister Amit Shah, after visiting the crash site and the hospital, told reporters he had personally met with the survivor and described the moment as “hope in a sea of tragedy.”
Ramesh’s identity was later corroborated through his boarding pass and testimony from his cousin, Ajay Valgi, and younger brother, Nayan Kumar Ramesh, both residents of Leicester, UK. “He called us himself,” Nayan said. “He just kept saying he didn’t know how he survived. Everything was burning. Everyone was screaming.”
The Boeing 787 was carrying 242 passengers and crew, including 53 UK citizens, when it lost altitude moments after takeoff, veered off trajectory, and plunged into the adjacent building. Rescue workers with sniffer dogs spent hours pulling charred remains from both the fuselage and the collapsed medical hostel, where a number of staff were reportedly resting at the time of impact.
Air India and India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation have launched a full investigation into the cause of the disaster, with black box recovery underway. Emergency DNA testing centers have been set up at BJ Medical College in Ahmedabad to help family members identify victims, many of whom were severely burned. The government has mobilized relief flights from Mumbai and New Delhi to assist grieving families and facilitate body identification.
The crash has been described as one of India’s worst aviation disasters in recent memory. While Ramesh’s survival story continues to capture international attention, the grief of families preparing to identify the remains of loved ones casts a heavy shadow on what should have been a routine transcontinental flight.
