On June 12, 2025, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner took off from Ahmedabad at 13:38 local time bound for Gatwick Airport. On board were 242 people, including passengers and crew members. The plane failed to land in London and crashed into a building used as accommodation for doctors at the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Medical College and Civil Hospital. All the people on board were killed except Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, who was occupying seat 11A.
The man told the Indian broadcaster that he could not believe he had emerged alive from the wreckage through an opening in the fuselage.
Ramesh was able to call his relatives to say that he was "fine," but did not know the fate of his brother Ajay, who was traveling with him.
God's choice? A miracle? I don't know what the survivor will think of his life from that day on, but he is aware that there could have been 242 dead.
While others may talk about the law of probabilities, news like this leads me to think that we do not live or die by chance, that life is a gift for which we must give thanks and for which we will be accountable.
I met the man who was to become the man of my life on a flight (Milan-Madrid) one day in July 2003. Sitting next to each other, we started talking in a cordial way when the trays with food were brought to us. Our story began in the heights and we have always been reluctant to think that we met by chance.
