Reports that a sole passenger miraculously survived the Air India plane crash that claimed 241 lives on Thursday have stirred considerable interest and speculation.
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British national, was found outside of the plane.
According to Dr Dhaval Gameti, who treated Mr Ramesh, he was disoriented and suffered multiple injuries but is expected to recover.
Social media platforms have been abuzz with reactions, with many users describing the event as “unreal”, “remarkable”, and even “a miracle”.
Instances of lone survivors in plane crashes, while rare, have occurred in the past.
In 1987, Cecelia Crocker, then known as Cecelia Cichan, survived the Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crash in Romulus, a suburb of Detroit.
The crash killed 154 people, including her parents and brother, as well as two people on the ground.
The Phoenix-bound plane was clearing the runway when it tilted and the left wing clipped a light pole before shearing the top off a rental car building. The McDonnell Douglas MD80 left a half-mile trail of bodies and wreckage along Middle Belt Road.
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded the plane’s crew failed to set the wing flaps properly for takeoff. The agency also said a cockpit warning system did not alert the crew to the problem.
Ms Cichan said in a 2013 documentary that she thought about the crash every day and that she had scars on her arms, legs and forehead. She had also gotten an airplane tattoo on her wrist.
“I got this tattoo as a reminder of where I’ve come from. I see it as — so many scars were put on my body against my will — and I decided to put this on my body for myself,” she said in the film.
At least three other people have been “sole survivors” of plane crashes.
George Lamson Jr., then a 17-year-old from Plymouth, Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985.
Mr Lamson in a social media post on Thursday said the news of a plane crash in India with only one survivor shook him.
“There are no right words for moments like this, but I wanted to acknowledge it,” he said.
“These events don’t just make headlines. They leave a lasting echo in the lives of those who’ve lived through something similar.”
Bahia Bakari, then 12, lived through a Yemenia Airways flight that crashed near the Comoro Islands in 2009.
Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky.
