Wife of sole survivor of Air India crash makes heartbreaking admission about his recovery and future
The wife of the sole survivor of the Air India plane crash has delivered a heartbreaking update on her husband, three months after the horrific accident killed 260 people.
On June 12, Air India Flight 171 crashed into the hostel block of B. J. Medical College 32 seconds after takeoff from the Sardar Vallabhabhai Patel International Airport runway in Ahmedabad, India.
The tragedy, which killed all 12 members of staff onboard, 229 of the 230 passengers, and 19 people on the ground, remains under investigation by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB).
40-year-old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh from Leicester escaped the wreckage of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which was heading from India to London Gatwick Airport on the day of the crash.
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The father was sitting near the emergency exit in seat 11A when the Air India plane went down three months ago.
In an interview with The Times, his wife Hiral said that her husband remains under medical supervision in India.
She added that he was grieving his brother, Ajay, who had been sitting across the aisle from him on the aircraft.
Hiral has since confirmed that she and Ramesh’s young son had returned to the UK, so the four-year-old could begin his schooling again. The rest of his relatives remain in India.
The outlet reported that while the child ‘understood’ why he had to return to England, he continues to ‘miss his dad’.
The survivor’s wife then issued a heartbreaking statement, claiming she didn’t know when he would be deemed well enough to join them back at home.
“I’m not sure when he’s coming back to the UK as his treatment is going on,” she alleged on Friday (September 12).
“Everything happened in front of him and the main thing is he lost his brother. He’s not talking to anyone in the media, even in India.”
According to the businessman’s brother-in-law, Ramesh may never return to the UK.
“I think he will stay over there because he would be too frightened to get on a plane again,” he told the Daily Mail.
What happened on Air India Flight 171?
A preliminary report released in July found fuel switches for the Boeing jet’s engines had been flicked to the ‘cutoff’ position just seconds after it lifted into the air, as per ABC.
As the plane began to descend, an attempt to restore fuel was unsuccessful, as per the report.
A conversation picked up from the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder recorded how one pilot was heard asking the other why the fuel had been cut off.
"The other pilot responded that he did not do so," the report said, without identifying who made those remarks.
Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Kunder, who had total flying experience of 15,638 hours and 3,403 hours, respectively, were manning the Air India flight on the day it crashed.
In a statement, Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) chief GVG Yugandhar has urged members of the public to remember that the disaster’s report is incomplete, and to refrain from spreading ‘premature narratives’.
Yugandhar claimed false rumors would ‘risk undermining the integrity of the investigative process’.
The bureau’s report came after a black box was located at the site of the crash on Friday (June 13).
At the time of its placement, India’s civil aviation minister, Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, said it would ‘significantly aid’ in finding out what happened.
Topics: Air India, India, World News, Health, UK News
Ella Scott