To the world, Vishwas Kumar Ramesh became the miracle man of the Air India AI-171 crash – the sole survivor to emerge from the wreckage of the Boeing 787 that claimed 260 lives.
But a year later, Kumar says survival was not the end of his ordeal. Behind the headlines, TV interviews and public fascination with how he escaped, he had sleepless nights, anxiety and memories that wouldn’t fade.
“People see that I survived, but they don’t always see the challenges that continue behind closed doors,” Kumar said in a statement marking the first anniversary of the accident. “I still suffer from sleep, anxiety and difficult memories.”
The accident, which occurred on June 12, 2025 near Ahmedabad, lasted only seconds. He points out that her influence on Kumar has continued every day since then. The London-bound Dreamliner crashed on the BJ Medical College campus moments after take-off, killing 241 of the 242 people on board and 19 people on the ground. Kumar escaped injured. His brother Ajay was not sitting elsewhere on the plane.
“I’m grateful to be alive, but survival is only part of the story,” he said. “What I have faced since then has been much more difficult than I can put into words.”
The statements offer a glimpse into the emotional toll on the 40-year-old British national, who found himself in the spotlight after becoming the only passenger to survive one of India’s worst aviation disasters.
In the immediate aftermath of the accident, images of a limping, bloodied Kumar walking away from the crash site spread across television and social media. Speaking from his hospital bed hours later, he recounted that he woke up amidst rubble and bodies before rushing to safety.
“When I got up, there were bodies all around me,” he told the Hindustan Times. “I was scared. I stood up and ran.”
The accident claimed the life of his brother Ajay Kumar Ramesh, who was traveling with him to London after visiting family in India. In interviews over the past year, Kumar repeatedly returned to that loss, describing it as the deepest wound left by the tragedy.
Emotional scars
While the physical injuries healed, the emotional scars proved more difficult to overcome.
Friends, counselors and family members have previously described how Kumar struggled with recurring memories of the accident, difficulty sleeping, and the challenge of adjusting to life after surviving an event that killed nearly everyone around him. He has spoken of feeling isolated and withdrawn from public life and finding it difficult to move past the events that occurred that afternoon.
The disaster also brought financial pressure. According to previous accounts, Kumar and his brother invested much of their savings in the fishing business in India. After the accident and Ajay’s death, the family’s plans are thrown into uncertainty, adding another layer of stress to an already devastating year.
His statement comes as India marks the one-year anniversary of the crash of Air India Flight AI-171 and investigators prepare to issue an update on the status of the investigation into the crash.
Air India accident investigation
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner departed Ahmedabad for London Gatwick on June 12, 2025, carrying 242 passengers and crew. About 32 seconds after take-off, the plane lost power and crashed into the PG Medical College campus. The disaster resulted in the deaths of 241 people on board and 19 people on the ground.
Investigators have spent the past year examining what happened during those final moments. A preliminary report released last year revealed that the fuel controls for both engines went from RUN to CUTOFF shortly after liftoff, depriving both engines of fuel. The report also revealed a brief conversation in the cockpit in which one pilot asked the other why the fuel cut off, only to be told he had not.
The next status report is expected to outline the progress of the investigation but is not expected to determine the cause of the accident.
