How did one man survive a plane crash that killed 241? An expert explains

The lone survivor of an Air India plane crash had several variables working in his favor, a Northeastern University EMS expert says.

But the most important one may have been luck.

After all, it was the deadliest air accident in history—241 people on board died—with a sole survivor.

In history, eight plane crashes have killed over 100 people that included one survivor. Most recently, a 19-year-old woman survived a Cuban plane crash that killed 112 in 2018. And in 2009, a 12-year-old girl survived a Yemen crash that claimed the lives of 152.

“The likelihood of survival in a crash of this nature is incredibly low, and I do believe that luck was on his side,” says Stephen Wood, an associate clinical professor at Northeastern and a longtime EMS practitioner.

Wood is also the program director for the Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program at Northeastern and co-advisor for the university’s EMS service.

“The narrow band of variables, including position in the aircraft, angle of impact, body orientation, restraint usage, debris path and immediate rescue or self-evacuation, all had to be in place for him to survive,” Wood says.

An Air India plane fell from the sky and split apart shortly after takeoff on Thursday, killing 241 people on board and about two dozen on the ground in Ahmedabad, India.

Viswashkumar Ramesh was the lone passenger who survived, telling the India state media that the side of the plane where he was seated fell onto the ground floor of a building and there was space for him to escape after the door broke open. He unfastened his seat belt and forced himself out of the plane, the Associated Press reported.

Ramesh was sitting in an exit row, which Wood says is typically reinforced but is also where the wing spar—the “backbone” of the wing—and the fuel tanks are located.

“This actually makes it a more dangerous place to be seated in that type of crash,” Wood says. “Survivability is rare.”

However, Wood says there are times when the momentum of a crash is uneven and creates areas where “survivability pockets” exist in the plane.

A survivability pocket is a small area within a crashed vehicle—especially an aircraft—where the forces of impact, fire and structural collapse are mitigated enough to allow a person to survive, even when the rest of the structure is destroyed, Wood says.

Wood says this may have been what happened in this case.

But more variables would have had to align as well for Ramesh to walk away from the crash.

Wood says the fuselage also had to detach without damaging the area where Ramesh was sitting.

“In that case, the fact that he was in an exit row hastened his escape, reducing his exposure to the smoke and fire,” Wood says.

“It is pretty amazing that all of this occurred, allowing him to survive this crash,” Wood continues.

This story is republished courtesy of Northeastern Global News news.northeastern.edu.