Sole survivor of Air India crash has an incredible story — but he’s not unique

A miracle. Stunning. Amazing.

These are some of the online reactions and in titles around the world on Vishwashkumar Ramesh, the Single survivor of the Air India accident It killed 241 people on board and several others on the ground after the plane crashed a few minutes after takeoff.

The Dreamliner hit a medical college inn when he crashed into a fireball in a residential area in the Indian city in the northwest of Ahmedabad on Thursday. DNA tests were carried out to identify bodies that were mainly charred beyond recognition. More and more victims should be found in the search for the accident site.

And then there is Ramesh, which, according to the police, managed to escape through the broken emergency exit on the Boeing 787-8 to London.

British media have nicknamed it “Headquarters miracle 11a. “The widely shared video claims to show Ramesh Box in the street in a bloody t-shirt with bruises on his face (the video was not checked independently by CBC News) before being led to an ambulance.

“I do not believe how I survived,” Indian state diffuser DD News said in Ramesh Friday from his hospital bed.

As incredible as the story of Ramesh may seem – even for him – it has already happened. It is rare, but in recent decades, several other people have been the only survivors of plane accidents.

And although each of their stories can look like miracles, an expert says that this is more of a certain number of improbable variables aligned.

Stephen Wood, professor of clinic associated with Northeastern University in Boston and medical expert in the event of a disaster and EMS, said that he was “extraordinarily rare” for someone to survive an airplane accident of Air India. Commercial line planes are designed for security, but in catastrophic accidents with high impact, the forces involved often exceed survivable limits.

“It is understandable that people call it a miracle, given the circumstances,” he told CBC News.

But from a technical point of view, wood added, survival in this type of event is “generally due to a confluence of rare but explainable factors, including the plane rupture model, the impact dynamics, the position and the state of the survivor, and sometimes only seconds of synchronization”.

“In medicine in the event of a disaster, we call this an event of” only survivor “, and on a global scale, these perhaps occur once every few decades.”

Other survivors alone of plane accidents

There are dozens of survivors alone of plane accidents, on large and small flights, going back to at least 1929. This is when Lou foteAn American pilot, survived when a tourist plane crashed near Newark airport, NJ, killing 14 people. According to the New York Times, he returned to the sky three months later.

You have to advance a few decades to go to the survivors of larger flights only. In 1970 there was Juan LooThe co -pilot of a Peruvian airliner who crushed and killed 99 people. He took off a few minutes earlier.

In 1971, Juliane Koepcke was 17 years old when she survived Lansa Flight 508, who killed 91 others, including her mother, when she crashed into the Peruvian jungle after being struck by the lighting.

“It was in black and people shouted, then the deep roar of the engines completely filled my head,” she said BBC in 2012.

“Suddenly, the noise stopped and I was outside the plane. I was in a free fall, attached to my siege bench and suspended the head of the head … I could see the canopy of the jungle turn to me. Then, I lost consciousness and I do not remember anything of the impact.”

It survived the fall of 3,000 meters after the plane collapsed in pieces, plus an additional 10 days wandering in the single and injured jungle.

There was Vesna vulovic guestWho survived Yugoslav Airlines in theft 367 in 1972. The plane exploded out of an air of a suspected bomb, killing the other 27 passenger and the crew.

According to BBC, Vulović was trapped by a food trolley in the tail of the plane as it fell 10,000 meters away. It is believed that heavy snow has helped to damage the impact.

“Whenever I think about the accident, I have a feeling of serious and dominant guilt for having survived it and I cry,” she said to Independent in 2012.

More recently, Maillén Díaz Almaguer survived a A 2018 plane accident in Havana who killed 112 others. The Boeing 737 fell and broke out in flames shortly after takeoff. Two other women initially survived the accident but died of their injuries.

Children among the only survivors

Sometimes the only survivors are children, like Cecelia Crocker – known as Cecelia Cichan at the time of the 1987 accident – which was on board the Northwest Airlines flight 255 when he crashed in the suburbs of Detroit de Romulus, Michigan, killing 154 people on board, including his parents and his brother. She was four years old.

Crocker said in a Documentary 2013 That she thought of the accident every day and that she had scars on her arms, legs and forehead. She also obtained an airplane tattoo on her wrist.

Bahia Bakari, then aged 12, experienced a flight that crashed near the Comoros Islands in 2009. The flight 626 of Yemenia Airways crashed in the Indian Ocean between the south-eastern coast of South-East Africa and Madagascar. The other 152 passengers, including Bahia’s mother, are all dead.

After the plane plunged into the ocean, it seized a floating part of the destroyed plane and stayed in the water for more than 11 hours before being saved by fishermen.

Bakari was transported to the capital of the capital, Moroni, then repatriated to France. She suffered a broken collarbone, broken hip, burns and other injuries.

Ruben Van Assouw survived the Airbus Afriqiyah Airways who crashed as Tripoli approaches, killing 103 passengers and crew on May 12, 2010. The nine -year -old Dutch boy was still attached to his seat, unconscious but always breathes, his broken legs in the middle of the debris dispersed in the Libyan sand.

He returned home after a safari with his parents and his brother and learned that he was the only survivor a few days later.

“Survival does not always bring a resolution”

Ramesh, the air survivor India, suffered burns and bruises and was held under observation, a official of the Ahmedabad civil hospital, asking for anonymity, told Reuters. Ramesh also lost his brother in the accident.

“His escape … And without any serious injury, was simply a miracle. He also realized it and is a little shaken by the trauma of it too,” said the official.

Several critical variables had to line up in this case so that he could survive, suggested wood, the expert in medicine in the event of a disaster.

First, the Ramesh seat, which was near an emergency exit on the wing, may have placed it in a structurally reinforced area. Second, the angle and the impact speed may have created a “survival pocket” or an “isolated area in the fuselage which has not been crushed or swallowed up in fire,” said Wood.

Finally, factors such as being correctly restricted, staying aware and allowing the area quickly may have contributed significantly, he said.

“These are all rare circumstances that should meet precisely,” said Wood.

George Lamson Jr., then 17 years old from Plymouth, Minnesota, was on a flight from Galaxy Airlines who crashed in Reno, Nev., In 1985, 71 passengers and crew on board the charter flight, he was the only survivor.

Lamson in an article on social networks Thursday said the news of a plane crash in India with a single survivor shook him.

“These events do not only make the headlines. They leave a lasting echo in the lives of those who have experienced something similar,” he wrote.

“Survival does not always bring a resolution. Life takes place after something like that, and the weight can appear years later in a way you are not expecting.”