Sole survivor of Air India crash recounts seeing others dying as he escaped

By Shivam Patel

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -The sole survivor of the Air India plane crash that killed more than 240 people said on Friday he hardly believed he was alive as he recounted seeing others dying near him as he escaped out of a broken emergency exit.

Ramesh Viswashkumar, who police said was in seat 11A near the emergency exit and managed to squeeze through the broken hatch, was filmed after Thursday's crash limping on the street in a blood-stained T-shirt with bruises on his face.

That social media footage of Viswashkumar, a British national of Indian origin, has been broadcast across India's news channels since the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner erupted in a ball of fire after it plummeted onto a medical college hostel moments after taking off from Ahmedabad.

It was the worst aviation disaster in a decade and his escape is being hailed as the "miracle of seat 11A" in the British media.

"I don't believe how I survived. For some time I thought I was also going to die," 40-year-old Viswashkumar told Indian state broadcaster DD News from his hospital bed on Friday.

"But when I opened my eyes, I realised I was alive and I tried to unbuckle myself from the seat and escape from where I could. It was in front of my eyes that the air hostess and others (died)."

He was travelling with his brother Ajay, who had been seated in a different row, members of his family have said.

"The side of the plane I was in landed on the ground, and I could see that there was space outside the aircraft, so when my door broke I tried to escape through it and I did," Viswashkumar said.

"The opposite side of the aircraft was blocked by the building wall so nobody could have come out of there."

Viswashkumar suffered burns and bruises and has been kept under observation, an official at the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad told Reuters by phone, requesting anonymity.

"His escape ... and without any grievous injury, was nothing short of a miracle. He also realises that and is a bit shaken by the trauma of it too,” the official said.

FAMILY HEARTBROKEN OVER BROTHER

Police said some people at the hostel and others on the ground were also killed in the crash. Rescue workers were searching for missing people and aircraft parts in the charred buildings of the hostel on Friday to help find the cause of the crash.

Air India has said the investigation will take time. Planemaker Boeing has said a team of experts is ready to go to India to help in the probe.

Viswashkumar said the plane seemed to come to a standstill in midair for a few seconds shortly after take-off and the green and white cabin lights were turned on.

He said he could feel the engine thrust increasing but then the plane "crashed with speed into the hostel".

At the family home in Leicester, central England, Viswashkumar's cousin Hiren Kantilal said they had spoken with him via video call that morning and relatives were urgently trying to make arrangements to travel to India.

Asked about Viswashkumar's brother, Kantilal said: "We can't describe in the words, we are totally heartbroken."

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived in his home state of Gujarat to visit the crash site, met Viswashkumar in hospital on Friday.

(Reporting by Shivam Patel in New Delhi; Additional reporting by Phil Noble in Leicester; Editing by Saad Sayeed and Alison Williams)