His wish was to save brother
In a scene of unimaginable grief and resilience, Mr Vishwaskumar Ramesh – the sole survivor of last week’s horrific Air India crash in Ahmedabad – shouldered his brother’s coffin through rain-soaked streets in their hometown of Diu (a town in the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli) on Wednesday, just days after narrowly escaping death himself.
The 40-year-old British businessman from Leicester still bore visible injuries from the crash, his arms and face wrapped in fresh bandages.
Dressed in a simple white cloth and blue jeans, he stumbled repeatedly under the combined weight of physical wounds and unbearable sorrow, supported by family and villagers who had gathered to pay their final respects to Mr Ajay, his brother and fellow passenger on the doomed flight.
On June 12, Air India’s London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner took off from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 1.39pm. Within seconds, the aircraft issued a distress call and crashed into the BJ Medical College complex, claiming the lives of all 241 passengers and crew on board, as well as 29 people on the ground.
Mr Vishwas and Mr Ajay, both originally from Diu, had returned to India to visit family and were heading back to London when tragedy struck.
For days after the crash, Mr Vishwas was treated at Ahmedabad’s Civil Hospital, while Mr Ajay’s remains were identified through DNA testing before being handed over to the family early on Wednesday morning.
In Bucharwada village, community head Dipak Devjibhai described the deeply emotional funeral.
“The entire family arrived for the procession. They carried Ajay’s body from Patelwadi to Koli Samaj crematorium. Despite heavy rain, people came out to stand with Vishwas and his family. Fourteen other locals died in this crash – it has devastated our community,” he said.
A heartbreaking video that quickly went viral shows Mr Vishwas, arm in a sling, face wrapped in gauze, shouldering his brother’s coffin alongside his weeping mother, draped in a blue sari.
The funeral took place under grey skies, with neighbours and relatives shielding the grieving family from the relentless rain.
Little is clear about how Mr Vishwas survived when no one else on board did. His seat, 11A, was close to an emergency exit on the left side of the plane.
In an interview with DD News, Mr Vishwas recounted how a twist of fate saved him: “The portion of the plane I was sitting in landed on the ground floor of the hostel. When I saw the door was broken, I knew I had to escape. I somehow walked out alive. Even now, I can’t believe it.”
New footage shows Mr Vishwas moments after the crash, dazed and limping away from the smouldering wreckage, guided by Mr Satinder Singh Sandhu, a supervisor with Ahmedabad’s emergency ambulance services.
Mr Sandhu told the BBC he was eating lunch when he saw massive flames and rushed to the site, not knowing he would rescue the only survivor.
“When I reached the college, I saw chaos everywhere – screams, fire, bodies. Suddenly, I saw this man emerging from the wreckage in a torn white shirt, face burnt. He kept trying to go back inside. We had to drag him away for treatment. Only later did I realise he was the lone survivor,” Mr Sandhu recalled.
First responders rushed Mr Vishwas to the hospital’s trauma centre, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited him the following day to check on his recovery.
A day after being discharged, Mr Vishwas found himself at Mr Ajay’s funeral – a cruel reminder of how narrowly he escaped the same fate.
Through tears, he told local reporters: “I lost my brother beside me. I wish I could have saved him. I still feel like I should have done more.”
Experts are still investigating the cause of the crash, which has become India’s deadliest aviation disaster in over a decade. Officials have retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders – the black boxes – and hope they will shed light on what went wrong just seconds after take-off.
Preliminary reports indicate that the pilot issued a “mayday” before the aircraft plunged into the medical college hostel. Eyewitnesses said they heard a loud explosion and saw a fireball engulf the building within moments.
In Diu, residents are struggling to come to terms with losing so many community members in a single tragedy. For Mr Vishwas’s family, the grief is magnified by the miracle of his survival. His mother, stoic during the final rites, collapsed into tears as her surviving son helped light Mr Ajay’s funeral pyre.
Locals who attended the cremation described it as a moment of profound sorrow but also a testament to the human spirit’s endurance in the face of unthinkable loss.
“He survived when no one else did, only to carry his brother’s body home,” said a neighbour. “God gave him a second life, but at what cost?”
