The Air India crash has been a heartbreaking tragedy. Only one person from the 244 on board managed to survive.
Plane crashes, unfortunately, occur every now and then. A survivor from a previous one noticed an eerie similarity he had with this crash.
A Thai singer was deeply shaken after hearing about the recent Air India crash, as it brought back haunting memories of his own terrifying experience in 1998. Ruangsak Loychusak, now 47, was a passenger on Thai Airways flight TG261, which crashed while attempting to land in Surat Thani after departing from Bangkok.
The aircraft stalled mid-air and plunged into a swamp, carrying 132 passengers and 14 crew. The crash claimed 101 lives and left 45 injured.
Ruangsak vividly recalls the traumatic event and said he got “goosebumps” upon learning that the only survivor of the Air India crash, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, had been seated in 11A—the exact same seat he occupied during his own near-death experience.
“The lone survivor in the India crash was in seat 11A, just like I was,” Ruangsak shared.
“I couldn’t fly for nearly a decade after the crash,” Ruangsak Loychusak recalled. “Even in a perfectly normal cabin, I struggled to breathe.”
He described how he withdrew during flights, avoiding conversation and obsessively staring out the window, refusing to let anyone close it. “It was the only thing that gave me a sense of control,” he said.
Dark clouds or storms outside the plane would send his anxiety spiraling. “It felt like I was back in hell,” he confessed.
The trauma never left him. “I still remember the sound of the crash, the smell of the cabin, even the taste of the swamp water we landed in,” he shared. “For years, I kept those memories buried inside.”
Ruangsak’s memories came flooding back after the tragic crash of an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner last Thursday. The aircraft, bound for London’s Gatwick Airport, crashed shortly after takeoff. The sole survivor was 40-year-old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh from Leicester, England who, eerily enough, was sitting in seat 11A, just like Ruangsak had decades earlier.
Ramesh recounted the harrowing experience: “It felt like the plane got stuck mid-air. The pilots tried to pull up, but instead we hit full speed and slammed into a building.”
He said the aircraft split in two, flinging him out just before a massive explosion. “I don’t know how I survived,” he told reporters. “I opened my eyes, unbuckled my seatbelt, and ran. Two cabin crew members died right in front of me.”
His seat, next to the emergency exit, had torn off during the crash. Ramesh suffered burns to his arm and was captured on video limping away from the wreckage a clip that quickly went viral.
He was rushed to the hospital, where Dr. Dhaval Gameti reported that although disoriented and covered in injuries, Ramesh was no longer in critical danger.
Tragically, his brother, who was also on board, is presumed dead. “When I woke up, there were bodies everywhere. I was terrified,” Ramesh said. “Someone grabbed me, put me in an ambulance, and brought me here.”
This heartbreaking tragedy has left many in mourning. Our deepest condolences go out to all those affected.
