Miracle happens: Lone survivor in fatal Air India crash

AN estimated 290 people were killed including 241 passengers after an Air India’s Boeing 787-8 ‘Dreamliner’ crashed into a residential area minutes after takeoff on its way to London last June 12.

Global mainstream media reported that ‘Air India Flight 171’ with 242 passengers and crews on board had just taken off around lunchtime from the Sardar V. Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, State of Gujarat, bound for the Gatwick Airport, south of London, UK, when the pilot reported the plane failed to ascend before it plunged towards the residential area.

Miraculously, there was a lone survivor from the passengers, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British national of Indian descent who told investigators and the media that he was thrown off the plane after it cracked into two before the crash, according to the updated report filed by the Associated Press on June 14.

Other fatalities came from those having lunch at the building where the plane landed before exploding into a fireball.

The updated report as of June 15 also said that 30 bodies of the victims have been turned over to their families while at least 88 more are undergoing DNA verification.

The AP also reported that the crash is the second most fatal involving Air India after another of its plane arriving from Dubai overshot the runway in Mangalore in 2010 then plunged over a cliff resulting to the death of 158 of its 166 passengers.

The crash is also the first involving a Boeing Dreamliner since its introduction in 2009 and is expected to further batter Boeing’s already tarnished reputation.

Although a thorough investigation is yet to be concluded, three possible scenarios have been raised: a flock of birds hit the plane’s engines, there was engine failure and, pilot error.

In March 2022, China led the world in the grounding of all Boeing 737 after a series of crashes that claimed hundreds of lives.

The latest disaster again dented Boeing’s stock price at the New York Stock Exchange, plummeting to $203.75 per share, some 4.8 percent lower, right after the news of the crash spread. MSNBC reported that on Friday, the stock further plunged to 2 percent less at the start of the trading hour.

Bloomberg reported that there are at least 1,187 operational Dreamliner at present all over the world but their continued operation remains uncertain after India announced it is grounding all Dreamliner flights pending the conclusion of the investigation.