The wife of the only survivor of the Air India plane crash has shared a sorrowful update on her husband’s condition, three months after the tragic incident which took the lives of 260 people.
On June 12, Air India Flight 171 tragically crashed into the hostel block of B. J. Medical College just 32 seconds after takeoff from the Sardar Vallabhabhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, India.
The accident, which resulted in the deaths of all 12 crew members, 229 of the 230 passengers, and 19 individuals on the ground, is currently under investigation by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB).
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, aged 40, from Leicester, miraculously survived the crash of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which was en route from India to London Gatwick Airport on the day of the disaster.
He was sitting close to the emergency exit in seat 11A when the Air India aircraft went down three months ago.
In a conversation with The Times, his wife Hiral revealed that her husband is still under medical care in India.
She mentioned that he is mourning the loss of his brother, Ajay, who was seated across the aisle from him on the flight.
Hiral has also stated that she and Ramesh’s little son have returned to the UK, allowing the four-year-old to resume his education. The rest of the family remains in India.
According to the report, while the young boy ‘understood’ the need to return to England, he continues to ‘miss his dad’.
In a poignant statement, Ramesh’s wife expressed uncertainty about when he will be deemed fit to rejoin them in their home.
“I’m not sure when he’s coming back to the UK as his treatment is going on,” she said 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.”
The businessman’s brother-in-law indicated that Ramesh might 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.
A preliminary investigation report released in July indicated that the fuel switches of the Boeing jet’s engines were turned to the ‘cutoff’ position shortly after it took flight, as reported by ABC.
When the plane started to descend, efforts to restore fuel were unsuccessful, according to the report.
The cockpit voice recorder captured a conversation between the pilots, where one asked why the fuel had been cut off.
“The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report stated, without disclosing who made the comments.
Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Kunder, with flying experience of 15,638 hours and 3,403 hours respectively, were in charge of the Air India flight on the day of the crash.
In a statement, AAIB chief GVG Yugandhar urged the public to remember that the investigation is ongoing and to avoid spreading ‘premature narratives’.
Yugandhar stressed that spreading false rumors could ‘risk undermining the integrity of the investigative process’.
The bureau’s report followed the discovery of a black box at the crash scene on Friday (June 13).
At that time, India’s civil aviation minister, Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, commented that it would ‘significantly aid’ in discovering the cause of the crash.