Passenger in seat 11A survives Ahmedabad crash, says brother still missing

Chaos unfolded in the skies minutes after takeoff as an Air India Dreamliner, bound for Gatwick, crashed near Ahmedabad airport on Thursday afternoon. Aboard the ill-fated flight was 40-year-old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who survived the crash but is now desperately searching for his missing brother.

“Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly,” said Vishwash, speaking from a hospital bed in Civil Hospital, Asarwa. He suffered injuries to his chest, eyes, and feet but managed to escape the wreckage alive.

Vishwash, a British national, was flying with his brother Ajay Kumar Ramesh, though the two were seated in different rows. “When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. Someone grabbed hold of me and took me to the ambulance,” he recounted, still clutching his boarding pass. His brother remains untraceable.

The flight, a Boeing 787-8 with 242 people on board, including crew, crashed shortly after its 1:39 PM takeoff and burst into flames. Among the passengers were 169 Indian nationals and 53 British citizens. Families have been gathering at the hospital, frantically looking for their loved ones, including relatives of former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani.