Ever since the catastrophic Air India Dreamliner crash on June 12, 2025, there has been one fact that has sparked global interest: sole survivor Vishwas Kumar Ramesh and his seat 11A.
Flight AI171, which was headed for London Gatwick, had crashed during take-off at Ahmedabad’s Meghani Nagar area, and more than 240 lives were lost, including passengers, flight crew, and ground-based civilians. Ramesh, a British national, was sitting beside an emergency exit in seat 11A. Against all odds, he survived by escaping through a defective emergency door just as the plane caught fire.
What adds to the spooky element of this narrative is an uncanny similarity with another aerial tragedy- Thai Airways Flight 261, which went down in southern Thailand in 1998. One of the sole survivors of that crash was popular Thai actor and singer Ruangsak Loychusak, and he, too, by pure chance, occupied seat 11A as per his recent post.
Even though the two crashes were thousands of miles and decades apart, the coincidence in seating numbers has attracted a web buzz of speculation in some circles, with some calling 11A a “miracle seat.” Memes, headlines, and tweets in Thailand and India quickly picked up the anecdote, hyping the strange coincidence.
Experts are quick to debunk the myth, though. Aviation safety researchers point out that seat numbers play no role in survival. Rather, outcomes are influenced by such factors as the aircraft’s impact angle, proximity of the seat to exits, fire behaviour, and timing of rescue. Yet the possibility that two survivors of two distinct major crashes occupied 11A is unlikely, and of course, raises an eyebrow.
In both instances, survival was at a cost in physical as much as in emotional terms. Loychusak, who was hurt in the crash of Thai Airways, spent months recovering. But he returned to work eventually and became an inspiration on Thai television. Vishwas, survivor of AI171, is being treated at Ahmedabad and, officials say, is stable but traumatized. Though the notion of 11A as a “miracle seat” seems comforting or captivating in the face of disaster, professionals advise the public to remain skeptical towards such claims. At present, 11A sits in the public mind as a reminder of surviving against all possibilities in one of India’s worst air tragedies.
