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Sole survivor of Air India crash 'still dreams he is on the plane'

Sole survivor of Air India crash 'still dreams he is on the plane'

Metro2 days ago
The only person to walk away from the deadly Air India flight last month is suffering from nightmares after his ordeal.
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, was the lone survivor from the plane, which crashed on June 12 in Ahmedabad, India.
The father-of-one, who had been in window seat 11A, stumbled out of the burning jet moments before it exploded, while all other 241 onboard – including his brother Ajay – were killed.
Family member Krunal Keshave, from Leicester, has now revealed the impact the tragedy has had on him: 'He can't sleep at night. He sleeps but doesn't sleep properly.
'When he sleeps, he dreams he is on the flight. He remembers seeing everyone die in front of his eyes.'
Ramesh had been travelling back to the UK, but has since remained in India with his wife and son, who are supporting him as he tries to live a normal life.
Keshave added: 'He speaks, but he doesn't speak about the crash. He is currently trying to have a normal life, but he is not going out too much.
'He is spending time at home with the family.'
Earlier this month, investigators looking into the Air India crash were trying to unravel a 'mistake' made by the pilots.
Assessments by US officials suggest the crash was not caused by problems with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
The findings suggest that switches controlling fuel flow to the jet's two engines were turned off.
This then led to an apparent loss of thrust shortly after takeoff.
Pilots on aircraft use the switches to start the jet's engines, shut them down, or reset them in certain emergencies.
These switches would normally be on during flight, and it is unclear how or why they were turned off.
The US investigators have said that it is unclear whether the move was accidental or intentional, or whether there was an attempt to turn them back on, according to the Wall Street Journal.
If the switches were off this could explain why the jet's emergency-power generator—known as a ram air turbine, or RAT was activated before the aircraft crashed.
It's also been revealed that the captain of the Air India plane vowed to return home soon to look after his elderly dad.
Just hours before one of India's worst aviation disasters that killed 260 people, the captain, Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, had reportedly told the security guard in his apartment complex to look after his elderly father, who lived with him.
The captain, who had over 15,600 hours of experience in the cockpit, said: 'Please, take care of papa. I will be back soon.'
His colleagues have rallied around him after the preliminary crash report appeared to shift the blame over the crash onto the pilots.
Other Air India pilots have claimed that Sabharwal struggled with mental health issues.
The doomed plane was carrying 169 Indian nationals, 53 British, one Canadian and seven Portuguese people.
MORE: Air India captain's final ask before boarding crash plane
MORE: Pensioner dies after car crashes down embankment onto railway
MORE: Family pays tribute to man, 58, killed in M60 motorbike crash
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'I'm American but I live in UK - British people aren't polite'
'I'm American but I live in UK - British people aren't polite'

Daily Mirror

timean hour ago

  • Daily Mirror

'I'm American but I live in UK - British people aren't polite'

An American woman living in the UK has left people in stitches after explaining why she believes "British people aren't polite." It's not that she thinks British people are rude. However, she believes Brits are "taught to mask their rage", which could explain the stereotype about British politeness. The observation was made by a blogger named Molly, who posts on social media as @strangecapers. She moved from Texas to Birmingham with her family, and she regularly posts TikTok videos explaining why she loves her new home. Despite enjoying her time in the UK, Molly has had a lot to learn. In a recent video, she explained "three cultural lessons" she's encountered. Molly said: "Here's three things that've taken me a full two years to learn living in the UK. "One is that, and this might be controversial, British people aren't polite. They are taught to heavily mask their rage. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I really think everyone wants to tell you to get f****d, but they're just so not allowed to, and so they're really polite to you, but I feel like you can see it behind the eyes, you know, like, they got a lot of rage. Not everyone." Despite this, Molly thinks Brits value their neighbours and go out of their way to help them. "Okay, two is, I feel like I have finally really learned, like, to my core, that neighbourliness is valued here. "People will take your packages. People got eyes on the street, especially if you live in, like, any kind of population density," she explained. "Like, people are watching out the window, for better, for worse. Like it. I like it. I feel cosy knowing that, like, if something happened to my wheelie bin or something, my neighbour would be like, I saw what happened, and come tell me, you know? Or take my package. Like, it's nice. It's lovely." Concluding her video, Molly admitted she's still learning about the British class system. "Lastly, and I haven't fully wrapped my mind around this, I'm still trying to really learn all the ins and outs of this, but the class system here is so calcified," she shared. "Of course, we have class in America, but oh, my God, the layers are so deep. It's like a Pandora's box. I feel like the more I learn, the less I know." Molly's video received more than 117,000 views and lots of comments from viewers who agreed with her points. Someone joked: "British Malicious Compliance is an art form." Another viewer shared: "As a Canadian living in the UK, people being polite but not really is something I found quite unsettling at first. "I describe it as 'polite but not kind' haha." Another commenter said: "The first one is so accurate, I've never understood the concept that Brits are super polite." Meanwhile, someone else wrote: "The politer UK people get, the more angry we are." Another social media user suggested: "I think that's why we all get road rage! We don't have to mask it in the car."

Air India crash report: Cockpit voices fuel controversy over doomed flight
Air India crash report: Cockpit voices fuel controversy over doomed flight

BBC News

time4 hours ago

  • BBC News

Air India crash report: Cockpit voices fuel controversy over doomed flight

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Together, the two pilots had more than 19,000 hours of flight experience - nearly half of it on the Boeing 787. Both had passed all pre-flight health checks before the the wave of speculative leaks has rattled investigators and angered Indian theories swirl about Air India crash, key details remain unknownLast week, India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), the lead investigator, stated in a release that "certain sections of the international media are repeatedly attempting to draw conclusions through selective and unverified reporting". It described these "actions [as] irresponsible, especially while the investigation remains ongoing".Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the US's National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is assisting the investigation, said on X that the media reports were "premature and speculative" and that investigations of this magnitude take time". Back in India, the Indian Commercial Pilots' Association condemned the rush to blame the crew as "reckless" and "deeply insensitive", urging restraint until the final report is out. Sam Thomas, head of the Airline Pilots' Association of India (ALPA India), told the BBC that "speculation has triumphed over transparency", emphasising the need to review the aircraft's maintenance history and documentation alongside the cockpit voice recorder the heart of the controversy is the brief cockpit recording in the report - the full transcript, expected in the final report, should shed clearer light on what truly happened. A Canada-based air accident investigator, who preferred to remain unnamed, said that the excerpt of the conversation in the report presents at several example, "if pilot 'B' was the one who operated the switches - and did so unwittingly or unconsciously - it's understandable that they would later deny having done it," the investigator said. "But if pilot 'A' operated the switches deliberately and with intent, he may have posed the question knowing full well that the cockpit voice recorder would be scrutinised, and with the aim of deflecting attention and avoiding identification as the one responsible."Even if the AAIB is eventually able to determine who said what, that doesn't decisively answer the question 'Who turned the fuel off?'"."We may even never know the answer to that question."Investigators told the BBC that while there appeared to be strong evidence the fuel switches were manually turned off, it's still important to keep "an open mind". 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Or are they still uncertain whose voices they were hearing and needed more time to fully investigate the matter before publishing any conclusions?Peter Goelz, former NTSB managing director, says the AAIB should release a voice recorder transcript with pilot voices identified."If any malfunctions began during take-off, they would be recorded in the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and would likely have triggered alerts in the flight management system - alerts the crew would almost certainly have noticed and, more importantly, discussed."Investigators are urging restraint in drawing conclusions."We have to be cautious because it's easy to assume that if the switches were turned off, it must mean intentional action - pilot error, suicide, or something else. And that's a dangerous path to go down with the limited information we have," Shawn Pruchnicki, a former airline accident investigator and aviation expert at Ohio State University, told the the same time, alternative theories continue to circulate. Indian newspapers includig the Indian Express flagged a possible electrical fire in the tail as a key focus. But the preliminary report makes clear: the engines shut down because both fuel switches were moved to cut-off - a fact backed by recorder data. If a tail fire occurred, it likely happened post-impact, triggered by spilled fuel or damaged batteries, an independent investigator week, AAIB chief GVG Yugandhar stressed that the preliminary report aims to "provide information about 'WHAT' happened"."It's too early for definite conclusions," he said, emphasising the investigation is ongoing and the final report will identify "root causes and recommendations". He also pledged to share updates on "technical or public interest matters" as they up, Mr Pruchnicki said the probe "boils down to two possibilities - either deliberate action or confusion, or an automation-related issue"."The report doesn't rush to blame human error or intent; there's no proof it was done intentionally," he other words, no smoking gun - just an uneasy wait for answers that may never even fully emerge.

Fuel to engines cut off before Air India crash, preliminary report says
Fuel to engines cut off before Air India crash, preliminary report says

BBC News

time5 hours ago

  • BBC News

Fuel to engines cut off before Air India crash, preliminary report says

Fuel to the engines of the Air India plane involved in a deadly crash was cut off moments after take-off, a preliminary investigation report has recovered cockpit voice recordings, the report said one of the pilots can be heard asking "why did you cut off?" - to which the other pilot replied he "did not do so".The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed less than a minute after taking off on 12 June from Ahmedabad airport in western India, killing 260 people, most of them passengers. One British national miraculously survived the crash. The investigation led by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is expected to produce a more detailed report in 12 months. Follow live coverageWhat we know so far about Air India crash investigationRead the preliminary report According to data from the flight recorder, both of the plane's fuel control switches moved from the run to the cut-off position in the space of a second, shortly after switches are usually only cut off to turn off the engines after landing, or during emergency situations such as an engine fire - rather than during cut-off caused both engines to lose thrust, the AAIB report is then confusion heard in the cockpit, with one pilot asking the other why he had switched off the fuel, which the other denied. The Gatwick-bound plane was being piloted by Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and co-pilot Clive Kundar. The report does not specify which voice is fuel switches then moved back into their normal in-flight position, automatically starting the process of relighting the engines. One engine, the report said, was able to regain thrust - but could not reverse the plane's deceleration. One of the pilots submitted a Mayday call just before the plane plummeted and crashed into a building used as doctors' accommodation, causing an pilots had an "adequate rest period prior" to the flight, the report had previously speculated that birds could have caused the crash, but the report said that "no significant bird activity" was observed in the vicinity of the plane's flight Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin in 2018 highlighting that some Boeing 737 fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged, the report issue was not deemed an unsafe condition requiring an Airworthiness Directive - a legally enforceable same switch design is used in Air India's VT-ANB aircraft which crashed. As the bulletin was advisory, Air India did not perform inspections. Experts who spoke to the BBC offered differing opinions on whether this could have played a factor. An Air India spokesperson said the airline acknowledged receipt of the preliminary report."We continue to fully co-operate with the AAIB and other authorities as their investigation progresses. Given the active nature of the investigation, we are unable to comment on specific details and refer all such enquiries to the AAIB," the Air India spokesperson a statement, Boeing said it would defer to AAIB to provide information about the crashed plane, in adherence with protocol under the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao). It also said it continued to support the investigation and its customer, Air US National Transportation Safety Board said that there were no recommended actions in the report aimed at operators of Boeing-787 jets or the GE accident marked the first time a 787-8 Dreamliner suffered a fatal crash since entering service in India says one engine on crashed plane was newHow the Air India crash investigation is unfoldingThe crash is a major setback for Air India, which is in the middle of a business turnaround following its privatisation. It was bought out by the Tata Group from the Indian government in airline has announced a cut in international operations on its wide-body aircraft as it grapples with several disruptions in the aftermath of the story has been corrected to clarify that the Federal Aviation Administration issued the bulletin about Boeing 737 fuel control switches in 2018

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