What to know about sole survivor of Air India crash and his seat number

It seemed like a miracle when shortly after news broke that an Air India flight had crashed in the city of Ahmedabad, video started circulating on social media showing a man walking from the scene in a bloodstained shirt.

Then, it emerged there was one survivor: Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British national of Indian origin, identified as by the Hindustan Times.

“Thirty seconds after takeoff, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly,” it quoted him as saying in an interview at the hospital where he was being treated.

Ramesh said he had been visiting family and was returning to the UK with his brother, who had been sitting in a different row. He didn’t know if his brother had survived, he said.

Read also: In Pictures: Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, India

Air India later confirmed that of the 242 people on board the flight, 241 had died, making Ramesh the sole survivor.

His cousin Ajay Valgi told reporters in Leicester, England, that Ramesh had called his family to tell them he’s “fine,” adding that they were upset about his brother and all of the others who died, CNN reported.

A doctor told CNN that Ramesh’s condition was “not very critical” and that he could be released in the next couple of days.

“He has some blood in the images, but he’s not very badly injured. He is very comfortable and under strict observation, no issues,” said Dr. Rajnish Patel, professor and head of surgery at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.

Indian news outlets have shared a photo of Ramesh’s boarding pass, which indicates that he was in seat 11A of the flight, in the emergency exit row, just in front of the plane’s left wing. CNN hasn’t independently confirmed the veracity of the photo.

David Soucie, CNN safety analyst and former US Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector expressed surprise that someone seated at that part of the plane would survive such a crash.

That seat is “right where the spar of the wing would go under and it would be a solid place for the aircraft to hit the ground, but as far as survivability above it, that is incredibly surprising,” he told CNN.

Ramesh’s survival was described as miraculous by a British member of parliament.

“It’s nothing short of a miracle. I have reached out to the family and I’m choosing to respect their privacy at this trying time. But as you may have picked up … one of his brothers was also on that flight who sadly didn’t survive,” Shivani Raja, member of parliament for Leicester East, told CNN’s Max Foster on Thursday.