India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with Vishwash Kumar Ramesh. Photo: Narendra Modi / YouTube / AFP
The sole survivor of the Air India plane crash that killed more than 240 people said he walked out of a broken emergency exit after the aircraft hit a medical college hostel in the city of Ahmedabad.
Ramesh Viswashkumar, who police said was on seat 11A near the emergency exit and managed to escape through the broken hatch, was filmed after Thursday's (local time) crash limping on the street in a blood-stained T-shirt with bruises on his face.
That social media footage of the British national of Indian origin was broadcast on nearly all of India's news channels after the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plummeted soon after take-off and erupted in a ball of fire.
It was the worst aviation disaster in a decade.
"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]."
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.
Viswashkumar said the plane appeared 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.
The back of an Air India plane after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad. Photo: Handout / CENTRAL INDUSTRIAL SECURITY FORCE (CISF) / AFP
He said he could feel the engine thrust increasing, but then the plane "crashed with speed into the hostel".
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived in his home state of Gujarat to visit the crash site, also met Viswashkumar in the hospital on Friday.
Doctors told local media that he did not sustain any major injuries.
Rescue officials carry a victim's body at the site where Air India flight 171 crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad. Photo: SAM PANTHAKY / AFP
"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 said he walked out of the crash site with only burn injuries on his left arm.
- Reuters
