The only survivor of the Air India crash has an incredible story – but he is not unique
Miracle. Amazing. incredible.
These are some reactions online, in headlines around the world, about Vishwashkumar Ramesh, the only survivor of an Indian Air crash, 241 people died on board after the plane crashed after the plane took off and more people were killed on the ground.
The dream plane crashed into a hotel in a medical school on Thursday when it hit a residential area in the northwestern Indian city of Ahmedabad. DNA testing is being conducted to identify most charred bodies. More victims are expected to be found while searching for the crash site.
Then, there is Ramesh, who police said, managed to escape through the Boeing 787-8's first aid exit and head to London.
British media called it “the miracle of seat 11a”. The widely shared video claimed that Ramesh was shown lim ropes in a bloody T-shirt, with bruises on his face (CBC News has no independent verification video) before being sent into an ambulance.
Ramesh, 40, told Indian state broadcaster DD News on Friday in his hospital bed.
Incredibly, Ramesh's story might sound – even for him. Rare, but in recent decades, several others have been lonely survivors of plane crashes.
Although each of their stories sounds like a miracle, one expert says there are more of many unlikely variables.
Stephen Wood is an associate clinical professor at Northeastern University in Boston, an expert in disaster medicine and EMS, saying it is “very rare” for someone to survive an Air India-sized plane crash. Commercial airliners are designed for safety, but in a catastrophic high-impact collapse, the troops involved usually exceed the limits of survival.
“It is understandable that people call it a miracle,” he told CBC News.
A fire crash in western India left a surviving passenger, a British national, reportedly walking from the scene to an ambulance. The Boeing 787, a London-bound Indian company, included at least one Canadian after taking off with 242 people.
But from a technical point of view, Wood added that survival in such events is often “usually due to a confluence of rare but explainable factors, including the breakup pattern of the aircraft, affecting dynamics, the location and status of the survivors, and sometimes even just a few seconds of time.”
“In disaster medicine, we call it the “single survivor” events, which globally may happen every few decades.”
The only other plane crash survivor
On flights of all sizes, there are dozens of unique aircraft crash survivors dating back to 1929. At that time, American pilot Lou Foote survived when a sightseeing plane crashed near the airport in Newark, New Jersey, killing 14 people. According to the New York Times, he returned to the sky three months later.
You have to skip decades to get to the only survivor of a larger flight. In 1970, Juan Loo, the co-pilot of a Peruvian passenger plane, crashed and killed 99 people. Removed it a few minutes ago.
Juliane Koepcke survived flight 508 in Lansa in 1971 when she killed 91 people, including her mother, and when it hit the Peruvian jungle, causing 91 people, she was hit by the lighting to the Peruvian jungle.
“It was black and people were screaming and then the deep roar of the engine made my head completely fill my head,” she told the BBC in 2012.
“Suddenly, the noise stopped and I was outside the plane. I was freely trapped in freefall, tied to a seat bench, hanging overhead with the people…I could see the jungle canopy spinning towards me.
After the plane broke into pieces, she survived a 3,000-meter drop, plus 10 days of jungle wandering and injured.
There was a flight attendant, Vesna Vulović, who survived the 1972 flight 367 of Yugoslavia. The plane exploded from a suspicious bomb, killing all 27 other passengers and crew members.
According to the BBC, Vulović was captured by a food cart at the rear of the plane as it fell 10,000 meters to the earth. It is believed that heavy snow helps cushion the impact.
“Whenever I think of an accident, I have a prevalence, a serious introspection, and I cry,” she told the Independent in 2012.
Recently, Mailén Díaz Almaguer survived a 2018 plane crash in Havana, killing 112 people. The Boeing 737 fell and flames burst out shortly after taking off. Two other women initially survived the crash but died from casualties.
The only survivor's child
Sometimes the only survivors are children, such as Cecelia Crocker at the time of the 1987 crash – known as Cecelia Cichan – who was flight 255 on Northwest Airlines, when it crashed in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, killing 154 people, including parents and brothers. She was four years old.
Crocker said in a 2013 documentary that she was thinking about a crash every day and had scars on her arms, legs and forehead. She also put on a plane tattoo on her wrist.
Bahia Bakari, then 12, lived on a flight that crashed near the Comoros Islands in 2009. Yemen Airlines Flight 626 crashed in the Indian Ocean between the southeastern coast of Africa and Madagascar. All 152 other passengers, including Bahia's mother, were dead.
After the plane crashed into the ocean, she grabbed the floating part of the destroyed plane and stayed in the water for more than 11 hours before being preserved by fishermen.
Baccaree was taken to the hospital in the capital Moroni and then repatriated to France. Her clavicle had broken, her hips broke, burns and other injuries.
Ruben van Assouw survived, which crashed on May 12, 2010, killing 103 passengers and crew. The 9-year-old Dutch boy, still tied to his seat, was unconscious but breathed, his legs scattered with debris in the Libyan desert desert, and his legs collapsed.
He returned home from the safari with his parents and brothers and learned that he was the only survivor a few days later.
“Survival doesn’t always bring solutions”
Ramesh, an air Indian survivor, suffered burns and bruises and has been observed, and an official at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital told Reuters by phone that he asked to be anonymous. Ramesh also lost his brother in the crash.
“His escape … without any serious injury, it was a miracle. He also realized this and was also a little shocked by its trauma.”
In this case, several key variables must be kept in order to survive, according to disaster medicine expert Wood.
First, Ramesh's seat is near the emergency exit on the wing, possibly placing him in a structurally enhanced area. Second, the angle and speed of the impact may create a “survival ability”, or a “survival ability” that is not crushed or devoured in the fuselage. ” Wood said.
Finally, factors such as being properly restricted, staying aware and leaving the area quickly could have made a significant contribution, he said.
“These are rare cases and need to be precisely integrated,” Wood said.
George Lamson Jr.
Lamson said in a social media post on Thursday that only one survivor shocked him about the plane crash in India.
“These events are not only headlines. They leave a lasting response in the lives of those who have experienced similar things,” he wrote.
“Survival doesn't always bring solutions. Life unfolds after something like that, and the weight in a few years will show up in a way you don't expect.”
Nicole Williamson, one of three people who survived a plane crash in Firm Bay last month, talked to Peter Mansbridge about the moment of the impact, her escape from the wreckage and her recovery
