What many call a miracle is a living nightmare to Viswashkumar Ramesh. The 37-year-old from Leicester, who was the sole survivor of the June 12 Air India plane crash that killed 241 people on board, including his own brother, Ajaykumar.
Operating as flight AI171, the Gatwick-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed into a nearby medical hostel building soon after taking off from Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
Ramesh was sitting in 11A, next to the emergency exit; he jumped out of the plane just before it crashed. His brother, sitting in the other seat, didn't survive. Months later, in an interview with Sky News, Ramesh says he is still trying to come to terms with the unbearable trauma, losing his brother and watching his business collapse
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Struggling to cope with life after the crash
In an interview with Sky News, Ramesh described himself as faltering and stumbling, lapsing into silence as he spoke about how the crash scared him and his family. “It's very painful talking about the plane,” he said, falling silent when asked to recall what happened on board the ill-fated aircraft.
Speaking from his hospital bed after the crash, he told DD India that when he stood up, there were bodies “all around” him. He was seeking help to find his brother in the hospital. The report further says, Ramesh said that the crash has left him “very broke down”, when he was asked about his life after the crash. The same feeling is shared by his family, too.
Ramesh rarely steps out of the house and spends most of his time alone in his bedroom, doing “nothing.” The report cited him as saying, “I just think about my brother… For me, he was everything,”
Living in Leicester with his wife and four-year-old son, Divang, Ramesh says life has not been the same since.
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Unable to reconnect with his son
Physical pain accompanied emotional wounds. Ramesh continues to suffer injuries to his knee, shoulder, and back, as well as burns to his left arm. His wife has to help him shower, he said.
When asked how his son is doing, Ramesh replied, Divang is “okay,” but admitted he is “not talking properly” with him. Asked if his son would come to his room, he simply shook his head.
‘Need more than just money’
Ramesh was joined in the interview by Leicester community leader Sanjiv Patel and adviser Radd Seiger, who said Air India's interim payment of £21,500 (approximately ₹21.9 lakh) was inadequate. The amount “doesn't even touch the sides," Seiger said, adding that Ramesh needs ongoing help with food, medical and psychiatric support, and even simple things like transporting his son to school.
The brothers had invested all their savings in a fishing business in India, which now has collapsed, leaving both their families without income both in India and in the UK, the report says.
Seiger and Patel have called on Air India to do more, other than providing monetary assistance, and pressed CEO Campbell Wilson to personally meet with Ramesh and the victims' families "to talk as humans."
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Air India responds
An Air India spokesperson said: "We are deeply conscious of our responsibility to provide Mr Ramesh with support through what must have been an unimaginable period. Care for him - and indeed all families affected by the tragedy - remains our absolute priority.” The spokesperson further said the senior leadership of the Tata Group continues to visit families to extend condolences. “An offer has been made to Mr Ramesh's representatives to arrange such a meeting. We will continue to reach out, and we very much hope to receive a positive response,” they said.
In all, the crash took 260 lives: 241 passengers and crew on board, and 19 others on the ground, leaving a trail of sorrow and many questions behind.
