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Air India crash: Survival of passenger is 'inexplicable', expert claims
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Jun 13, 2025
Aviation expert Sally Gethin has told GB News it is "inexplicable" how one passenger managed to survive the horror Air India collision.India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with British passenger Vishwash Kumar Ramesh in hospital, the only person to have survived the crash on Thursday.FULL STORY HERE.
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But recovery teams, they're still working through the wreckage of the Air India crash in Ahmedabad
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More than 290 people have died, are known to have died, including 241 passengers on board that plane
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Well, a police official says that six bodies have been released to the families who could identify loved ones by sight
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DNA verified remains will take longer. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited the hospital where the sole survivor, a British national recovery
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He says, the survivor says he has no idea how he made it out alive
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Well, Air India and the Indian government are looking at several aspects of the Boeing plane's crash in Ahmedabad
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including issues with the jet's engine thrust, its flaps and why the landing gear remained open
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OK, well, aviation expert Sally Gethin joins us now in the studio. Sally, absolutely shocking incident yesterday, of course
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We've learnt quite a bit since, haven't we? We've learnt a lot, but obviously the investigation will take a long time to complete
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But already it seems that they've found one of the black boxes, which will be a relief
1:10
It will provide a lot more information immediately. And obviously we're looking now at whether it could be an issue with the aircraft
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because it seems very unusual that the pilots were able to continue trying to pilot the airplane but they issued a May Day call before it actually exploded in a fireball
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Looking at some of the video footage that we were able to see, and it is incredible how in 2025 we do usually now get to see quite a lot of this video evidence
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It looked like the plane was struggling to take off, dipping down and trying to get up and just wasn't able to gain height
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What are the best theories that we have for why that could have been the case
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So what we saw was it used the full length of the runway. It seems that the flaps were not deployed
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which they should have been deployed at that stage to give more lift to the take-off manoeuvre
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And then as it climbed, it seemed to climb all right, but then it levelled off
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And we saw that it was slightly nose-up, which suggests that the crew were trying to force it up
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to pitch up to a climb mode, but then it absolutely gradually descended
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So there are some theories circulating, for example, that the pilots communicated that they had a loss of thrust or power
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which is very concerning, suggests potentially an issue with the actual aircraft
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And also the fact that it just would not achieve that climb, that altitude
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It's so unusual given the fact it was perfect weather as well
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Everything else seems to have been in place. and if the pilots had had any concern
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while they were barrelling down the runway that they could have aborted there a point when you can still abort that take And this miracle survivor One person survived this hideous incident
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Seat 11A, we know that. We know he's a British national. Sadly, his brother appears to have died in the very same crash
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I mean, it's hard to really think how someone could have survived such a thing
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but clearly where he was positioned saved his life. There is something inexplicable about how this one individual survived
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We're grateful that he did survive. I think his survival will be integral to the learning curve
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for aircraft design engineers, for aerospace manufacturers, because they will want to see what were the forces at work
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that enabled this particular passenger in that seat to survive. It also might be involved with the way, the position of the aircraft, the way it hit that building
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Obviously, we can see there are some parts of that aircraft fuselage still intact
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Conventional wisdom has it that the rear of the aircraft affords a bit more protection to passengers, but clearly not in this case
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I mean, looking at the layout of the aeroplane, it did seem that 11A was the seat by the emergency exit
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and whether that door could have been blown out when the plane actually landed
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that the sort of fuselage had that shock the door was out he was sort of thrown out without doing anything himself But it seems having seen that video that we just played on our screens there of just the size of the fireball
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the tons and tons of aviation fuel that went up in flames
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as you say, it just seems extraordinary that someone was able to survive this
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Yes, it is extraordinary. And you're right that the aircraft was fully laden with fuel for the long journey ahead
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and that that multiplied the impact. I just want to add that Japan has actually opted to, the country of Japan, the government has decided to mandate its airlines, Japan Airlines and Onipon Airways to ground their B787 Dreamliner fleet
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But that's extraordinary because this is such a safe plane up until this point
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Yes, but it doesn't indicate that necessarily there is a flaw with the 787
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because the US officials that are also flying to be part of the investigation
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the Federal Aviation Administration and also the NTSB, which looks into safety issues
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have both stated that there is no need for grounding the 787 at this point
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But sometimes what you see has happened with the 737 MAX is that has a domino effect
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and then sometimes other airlines just follow suit anyway. and that will be a major concern to Global Airlines
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because it is really a workhorse of the skies for long-haul intercontinental travel
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Well, we know that this particular plane had performed many a flight
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Sally Gethin, thank you very much indeed, aviation experts
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