In an emotional scene marked by grief and resilience, the sole survivor of last week’s tragic Air India crash, Vishwashkumar Ramesh, carried the coffin of his younger brother Ajay during a funeral procession in the rain-soaked town of Diu, western India.
Still wrapped in bandages from the burns he suffered, Ramesh walked beside his grieving mother and fellow mourners, his expression a mix of sorrow and disbelief. Just days earlier, he had emerged as the only person to survive a catastrophic crash that killed more than 270 people—including every other passenger and crew member on board, as well as dozens on the ground.
The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner went down seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad, crashing into a residential complex and a nearby doctor’s hostel. Among the victims was Ajay Ramesh, who had been seated near his brother on the flight.
In a heartbreaking display of love and loss, Ramesh—his face and arms still visibly injured—shouldered the weight of his brother’s coffin through the streets of their hometown. Townspeople gathered in the pouring rain to pay their respects, 14 of their own also lost in the crash.
No one yet knows how Ramesh survived the disaster. New video footage shows him walking out of the flaming wreckage, guided by emergency responder Satinder Singh Sandhu, an ambulance supervisor who spotted him amid thick smoke and rising flames. Sandhu had initially rushed to the scene believing it to be a car explosion or gas blast. Only later did he realize he had saved the sole survivor of a plane crash.
Speaking to the BBC, Sandhu recalled Ramesh’s disoriented and anguished state. Despite his injuries, Ramesh tried to run back into the burning debris to search for his brother. “He didn’t know what he was doing,” Sandhu said. “We had to stop him and take him to the ambulance. That’s when he said, ‘My brother is inside.’ After that, there were no more words.”
Ramesh, 40, later told DD News that he still doesn’t understand how he survived. “For a moment, I felt like I was going to die too. But when I opened my eyes and looked around, I realized I was alive. I still can’t believe it. I walked out of the rubble.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Ramesh in the hospital, where he has spent most of the past five days recovering. Yet even with his own life spared, the pain of losing his brother and witnessing the devastation firsthand weighs heavily on him.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation. Authorities have recovered the aircraft’s black box—the cockpit voice and flight data recorders—and are analyzing the contents to determine what went wrong.
For now, the town of Diu mourns its dead, and a grieving brother, saved by fate, carries the unbearable weight of loss.