The wife of the only passenger to survive the June 12 Air India crash said her husband remains in India receiving treatment and is mourning his brother, who was killed when the Boeing 787 went down after taking off from Ahmedabad.
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, from Leicester, walked away from the crash with cuts to his face and some chest injuries but has been left “devastated” and silent before the media, his wife told The Times. Of the 242 people on board the flight to London, 241 were killed; 29 people died on the ground when the aircraft struck a residential medical college hostel in Ahmedabad.
Ramesh has been described in Indian media as a “miracle” survivor after crawling through a hole in the fuselage near an emergency exit and escaping the burning wreckage. His wife said he is chiefly tormented by the loss of his brother Ajay, who had been seated across the aisle. She said: “I’m not sure when he’s coming back to the UK as his treatment is going on. 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.”
Relatives and emergency responders have described Ramesh’s distress in the moments after the crash. Footage obtained by media outlets showed Ramesh attempting to return to the burning fuselage to reach family members. An emergency worker, Satinder Singh Sandhu, told reporters he found Ramesh disoriented and led him to an ambulance. "He was very disoriented and shocked and was limping. There was also blood on his face, but he was able to speak," Sandhu said. Ramesh told first responders his brother was inside and “burning to death,” relatives and officials said.
Ramesh has said he tried to book adjacent seats so he and his brother would sit together but had been forced to take two seats apart in row 11. He told a British tabloid shortly after the crash that he believes the seating separation may have cost his brother’s life and that he is haunted by scenes of people dying around him.
The Gujarat crash dealt a heavy toll to British citizens: officials have said 52 of those killed were British. Air India has offered compensation to most affected families, with media reports putting typical payouts at about £21,500. Ramesh may be able to claim compensation for both physical injuries and psychological trauma, his wife said.
In the months since the disaster, some bereaved relatives in Britain have expressed anger over the handling of remains. Two British families who say they received "other remains" in a casket that was said to hold their relatives sent an open letter to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, calling on her to press Indian authorities for answers. In the letter they wrote that they had endured “the unimaginable pain of their remains being mishandled, mislabelled, commingled and in one devastating case, completely lost without any explanation or any sort of empathetic response regarding this whatsoever from the authorities in India.” They added: "We are not asking for sympathy but are asking for accountability, responsibility and action. The silence and indifference that we have faced are further traumatising and have added to our grief and sorrow. We cannot mourn in peace until accountability for these wrongs are acknowledged and addressed."
Indian and international authorities have been involved in recovery and response efforts since the crash, and investigations into the cause remain under way. Ramesh’s family and other bereaved relatives continue to seek information and accountability while some victims’ relatives pursue compensation and answers about the handling of remains.