Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, the sole survivor of the Air India crash, suffers from severe PTSD and physical injuries. Photo / Getty Images
The sole survivor of the Air India plane crash has said he struggles to leave his bedroom because of constant flashbacks that have left him mentally “broken”.
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh miraculously walked out of the wreckage alive after 260 people, including his brother, were killed when the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed in June.
Speaking from his home in Leicester in a rare interview, he said: “God gave me life but took all my happiness... It completely brought down my family.”
Fifty-three Britons were among the 241 passengers killed when flight AI171 crashed 11 seconds after take-off on June 12 in Ahmedabad, western India, killing 19 more on the ground.
Footage of Ramesh, a 39-year-old businessman, staggering barefoot and drenched in blood out of the wreckage, was broadcast around the world. He had been seated in 11A and managed to crawl out of an opening in the fuselage that was severed from the rest of the plane before it exploded on impact.
Four months on from the crash, he revealed that he still gets “flashbacks all the time” and only sleeps for “three to four hours” each night, adding that his recollections of the crash are still too painful to discuss.
“I lost my brother, I’m broken. We were all happy, enjoying [life]. My brother was my strength, he was my everything. And now? We’re broken, I don’t feel like talking to anyone,” he said.
“My mother, father and my younger brother totally broke down – like mentally. And also me – mentally, physically,” he added, saying he doesn’t speak about the incident with his close family.
“I’m in my room, alone. I don’t like to talk too much... Every day I’m struggling,” he said. Ramesh wore a New York Yankees cap to the interview to commemorate his brother Ajay, who was wearing an identical cap on the day of his death.
He told how he still suffers from pain in his leg, shoulder, knee and back, which stop him from working or driving, and had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Radd Seiger, Ramesh’s spokesman and adviser, said Ramesh is “existing rather than living” after the crash and accused Air India of abandoning him and “hiding behind lawyers”.
He described how Ramesh now struggles to leave his home, even to take his 4-year-old son to school, because of the extent of his psychological and physical injuries. “I’ve never seen suffering like it,” he added.
Air India has so far only offered Ramesh an interim payment equal to that offered to the relatives of the victims before a final sum has been negotiated.
He questioned why Air India is “offering everybody the same [payment]” when Ramesh is the sole survivor. “You might guess that his claim is by far bigger than anyone else’s, because as you can imagine his injuries are horrendous,” Seiger said.
The airline has refused three requests to meet with Ramesh to discuss appropriate compensation for his psychological and physical injuries, Seiger said. An invitation to meet with the Tata group, Air India’s parent company, has been offered, but not with the airline itself.
Seiger said Ramesh is not seeking a specific figure in compensation and that they just “want a conversation”.
“Our appeal is for the chief executive of Air India to come and meet us, so that he can see for himself the terrible suffering that [Mr Ramesh] and his family are enduring,” he said.
A preliminary report released by Indian authorities in July found that both fuel-control switches moved to the “cut-off” position seconds after take-off, which led to a catastrophic loss of thrust.
In a recovered cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots asks the other why he had “cut off” the fuel supply, to which the pilot replied he hadn’t. The report sparked serious questions over whether one of the pilots, who had more than 9000 hours of flying time between them, had acted deliberately.
Seiger said Air India has reneged on its promise to treat victims of the crash like “family”.
“I know that there are a number of families both in India and here in the UK who are feeling abandoned.”
In July, a lawyer representing families of the victims accused the airline of “ethically outrageous” behaviour towards bereaved relatives and called for an investigation into its conduct, the Guardian reported.
Air India said in a statement to PA that it is “deeply conscious” of the responsibility to provide Ramesh with support “through what must have been an unimaginable period”.
“Care for him – and indeed all families affected by the tragedy – remains our absolute priority,” it added. “An offer has been made to Mr Ramesh’s representatives to arrange such a meeting, we will continue to reach out and we very much hope to receive a positive response.”
The Telegraph has approached Air India for comment.
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