It has been a year since the Air India AI-171 plane crash in Ahmedabad. 260 people died tragically in this gruesome accident. This accident happened in the air within a few minutes of the plane taking off. Not only were the people on board the plane killed, many people who were hit below by falling debris lost their lives. However, in this accident there is also a person who was on board the plane and managed to return alive. Vishwas Kumar Ramesh, who appeared before the world, but even after being alive, he is facing many problems.
One year after the accident, Ramesh says survival was not the end of his ordeal. On one hand, along with media, social media and TV interviews, he remained a topic of discussion among the people as to how he survived. But apart from this he is also struggling with many problems. Every moment was very difficult for him. He is living with sleeplessness, anxiety and memories related to the accidents which always remain with him in the form of shadows.
‘Trouble behind closed doors’
In a statement released on the anniversary of the plane crash, Ramesh Kumar said, “People see that I survived, but they don’t always see the challenges and struggles that remain with them behind closed doors. I still struggle with insomnia, anxiety and difficult memories.” This accident, which happened near Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025, may have lasted only a few seconds. But he believes that its impact continues to affect him every day since then.
The Dreamliner plane, which left for London from Ahmedabad, crashed above the BJ Medical College campus just minutes after take-off, killing 241 of the 242 people on board and 19 people on the ground. While he got injured and escaped safely from the plane. His brother Ajay was also sitting in the plane, who died in the accident. The two brothers were returning to London after visiting family in India.
‘It is difficult to express the pain in words’
He said, “I may be grateful to be alive, but survival is only part of the story. What I have faced since then has been more difficult than putting into words.” Ramesh is a British citizen of Gujarati origin and he suddenly came into limelight across the world due to his survival in one of the worst plane crashes in the history of India.
Immediately after the accident, pictures of Ramesh walking away from the accident site, drenched in blood and limping, quickly went viral on TV screens and social media. A few hours later, he was seen talking on the hospital bed. He had narrated the incident of waking up amidst debris and dead bodies and then somehow reaching a safe place. Then he had told, “When I woke up, there were dead bodies lying all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran away from there.”
In the last one year, he gave many interviews and during this time he kept mentioning that loss again and again and kept calling it the deepest wound of his life. He says that the physical injuries healed, but the emotional wounds proved very difficult to recover from. His close relatives say that Ramesh had frequent memories of the accident and problem of insomnia. He felt like living alone and his interaction with people also decreased.
One year of investigation into Air India accident
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner took off from Ahmedabad for London Gatwick on June 12 last year with 242 passengers and crew. But just 32 seconds after take-off, the plane developed a problem and crashed at the BJ Medical College campus. 241 people aboard the plane and 19 people on the ground below died in the accident.
Investigators have spent the past year trying to find out what happened in those final moments. A preliminary report released last year revealed that immediately after takeoff, the fuel control switches of both engines moved from the ‘RUN’ position to the ‘CUTOFF’ position, cutting off fuel to the engines. The report also revealed a brief conversation in the cockpit in which one pilot asked the other why he had shut off the fuel, to which the other pilot replied that he had not. Now investigators are preparing to release information about the status of the accident investigation.
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