11A miracle brings back memories, traumas for past crash survivors and their brush with death
They survived aviation disasters at Bengaluru, Mangaluru and Kozhikode, but say the physical and emotional scars still linger
The man in seat 11A's escape from the wreckage of flight AI171 which crashed in Ahmedabad may seem extraordinary but not to Joel Prathap D'Souza, who survived the 2010 Mangaluru plane crash . Like Vishwakumar Ramesh of Seat 11A who survived the June 12 crash, D'Souza, then 24, managed to jump out moments before the plane caught fire.
'After it crashed into the forest, a small crack opened in the body of the aircraft. I pulled it open with my hands and jumped through it. Five others followed me,' recalls D'Souza, who was flying home to Mangaluru from Dubai when Air India Express flight IX 812 overshot Mangalore's table-top runway and plunged down a steep hillside, killing 158 of the 166 people onboard.
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