A recent plane crash in India, where hundreds perished, drew global attention for its shocking nature. Among the few survivors was Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who miraculously emerged with minor injuries after being ejected from the wreckage of an Air India flight that exploded and broke apart. His survival, while extraordinary, is not a unique occurrence; history is punctuated with stories of unlikely plane crash survivors.
In 1950, the world’s deadliest air disaster at the time occurred when an Avro Tudor V crashed at Llandow Aerodrome in Wales, claiming 80 lives. Remarkably, two individuals seated in the rear, where extra seats had been hastily installed, escaped without harm. Another survivor was a passenger who happened to be in the toilet during the landing, later spending four months recovering in the hospital.
The odds of surviving mid-air disasters are infinitesimal. In 1971, a Lockheed L-188A was struck by lightning over the Amazon rainforest, and Juliane Koepcke, a young girl, plummeted to the ground strapped to her seat. While she lost consciousness during the fall, the dense canopy of the rainforest helped cushion her landing, allowing her to survive.
Another astonishing tale belongs to Vesna Vulovic, who endured a 10-kilometre fall from a Yugoslavian plane bombed in 1972. Surviving against the odds, she was pinned inside a section of the aircraft that landed on a snow-covered mountainside, contributing to her survival.
In 2009, 12-year-old Bahia Bakari found herself as the sole survivor of Yemen Airways Flight 626, which crashed into the Indian Ocean. Despite suffering numerous injuries, she clung to wreckage for hours, eventually being rescued alone.
More recently, the unfortunate crash of Jeju Air Flight 2216 resulted in only two flight attendants surviving after the fuselage split upon impact. Despite the common belief that sitting in the rear is the safest, survivors maintain that each crash presents unique survival challenges. According to flight safety expert Hassan Shahidi, no definitive correlation exists between seating positions and survivability, emphasising the unpredictable nature of aviation incidents.
These remarkable survival stories highlight the fragility of life and the extraordinary circumstances that can lead some to defy the odds in the face of tragedy.