Lone Air India survivor carries coffin of brother killed in crash
THE British man who was the sole survivor of last week's Air India plane crash has helped lay his brother to rest at a funeral in western India.
Vishwashkumar Ramesh's brother Ajay was also on the ill-fated flight but did not survive the tragedy.
A visibly upset Ramesh was one of the pallbearers who carried his brother's coffin to the crematorium in the town of Diu, his arm and face still covered in white bandages. He's spent most of the past five days in the hospital.
The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed seconds after taking off on Thursday from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. At least 270 people were killed, most of them passengers.
Mr Ramesh's mother walked with the coffin in a blue sari along with other mourners, as he held it on his right shoulder.
Several people from the town, which lost 14 other people to the crash, came out for the funeral even as the rain lashed the procession.
No one is clear how Mr Ramesh managed to survive. He even tried to go back to the blazing plane to search for his brother, one of the first responders at the scene told the BBC.
In a new video that emerged earlier this week, ambulance driver Satinder Singh Sandhu is the man seen guiding Mr Ramesh to safety as he walks out of the crash site with flames and thick smoke billowing into the air behind him.
Mr Sandhu, a supervisor with the emergency ambulance services in Ahmedabad, says he had no idea who he was helping, or that Mr Ramesh had escaped from the plane. He only found out later that day on the news that the man was the sole survivor of the crash.
Vishwashkumar Ramesh, 40, was in seat 11A on the flight. His brother is reported to have been sitting a few seats away.
All other passengers and crew were killed and nearly 30 people also died on the ground after the plane hurtled down and crashed into a doctor's hostel.
But Mr Ramesh miraculously survived, managing to get out of the wreckage through an opening in the fuselage.
The new video shows Mr Sandhu, who's wearing a blue turban, walk up to Mr Ramesh and guide him to safety.
