A British passenger miraculously survived the deadly Air India plane crash that killed more than 200 people Thursday, according to local officials and video of him walking away relatively unscathed.
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who was in seat 11A when the Boeing 787-8 crashed into a residential neighborhood Thursday afternoon, is recovering in the hospital, Ahmedabad Police Commissioner GS Malik told ANI news.
He was found limping in the street amid the carnage after the passenger plane went down just moments after taking off from the Ahmedabad airport, he told the Hindustan Times from the hospital.
“When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me,” The 40-year-old said.
“Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital.”
Ramesh recalled the horrifying moment the plane began rapidly descending and hitting a doctors’ hostel in a residential part of the city of 5 million in northwest India.
“Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly.”
There were 242 people onboard the plane.
Ahmedabad’s police chief told the BBC that so far 204 bodies have been recovered from the crash site — however it’s not clear if all were on the plane, or if some victims were on the ground when the plane crashed.