Featured Image Credit: IndiaToday
Topics: Air India, World News
James Moorhouse
A shocking video has captured the moment students in India had to dangle from a balcony to save themselves, after the Air India plane crashed into their building.
On Thursday 12 June, a London Gatwick-bound plane lasted just moments in the air after taking off from Ahmedabad airport in India, tragically crashing and killing all but one of the 242 people on board.
British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh was the sole survivor from the disaster, which has been officially recognised as one of the worst in a decade, as it follows on from a recent bout of aviation-related accidents.
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Naturally, much of the focus has been on the 241 people on the flight who lost their lives, but the total death toll is actually 270, as 29 people on the ground also sadly lost their lives in the incident, a number which reportedly could have been much higher if it were not for the 'heroic' actions of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, after he avoided an apartment block.
However, it did crash into an accommodation block for a medical college, and a new video captured by local media has spotted students taking evasive measures to get out of the building.
The video shows a number of people using bedsheets as ropes as they clamber out of the balcony and scale down the building, with fire and smoke seen in the background, in actions that might just have saved their lives.
While dramatic, it seemingly doesn't compare to the actions of Mr Ramesh, who was somehow able to walk away from the crash relatively unharmed. He spoke with local press after the crash, saying:
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"For a little while, I thought I was also going to die. But when I opened my eyes, I realised I was alive.
"So I tried to escape. I pulled out the belt from under my seat and tried to escape. Then I managed to do it. I saw others and the air hostess in front of me who couldn’t escape."
There was a major update in the crash investigation earlier this week, as authorities were able to identify a potential cause of the plane going down, with reports suggesting that an emergency-power generator, which is known as a ram air turbine (RAT), may have been in operation when the crash took place.
A haunting video taken on the same plane just hours before the disaster also claimed that nothing was working, which suggests that there could be serious repercussions for Air India once the investigation into the disaster concludes.