30 years apart two plane crash survivors occupied the same ‘seat 11A’

An Air India flight crashed shortly after takeoff from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad on Thursday, killing 241 of the 242 people onboard. In the London-bound aircraft, a British national of Indian origin, identified as Vishwashkumar Ramesh, was the lone survivor.The 40-year-old was in seat 11A. The incident brought back memories of a similar event that occurred nearly three decades ago.
Twenty-seven years ago, James Ruangsak Loychusak, a Thai actor and singer, survived the Thai Airways flight TG261 crash while seated in 11A. The tragic incident happened when the flight was attempting to land in Surat Thani, a city in southern Thailand.
The flight with 146 people on board took off from Bangkok; however, during landing, it got stuck in mid-air and crashed, killing 101 individuals.
The actor was one of the survivors and was seated in 11A. He has now expressed shock after learning that the lone survivor of the latest tragedy in Ahmedabad was also in the same seat as him.In a post on Facebook, he wrote, “Survivor of a plane crash in India. He sat in the same seat as me. 11A. Goosebumps.”

While the story of seat 11A reminds people of the Thai Air crash, a few things are different. The Thai Air flight was an Airbus A310, while the Air India Flight AI-171 used a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. There were multiple survivors in the Thai crash, but only one defied death in the Ahmedabad crash.As far as the design, layout, and seat positioning of 11A are concerned, they are different on the two planes.

On June 12, the London-bound Air India jet took off from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Airport and crashed 30 seconds later into the hostel building of a medical institution.

On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the site of the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad. He also met Viswashkumar Ramesh at a civil hospital in Ahmedabad.