Sole survivors: How people live through plane crashes that kill everyone else

Saturday, 14 June 2025 07:15

It seems like an unthinkable fluke, but Vishwash Kumar Ramesh is not the first person to survive a plane crash through bizarre and surprising circumstances.

The world was shocked by the plane crash in India that killed hundreds.

But focus after the disaster quickly shifted to the sole survivor who somehow survived the crash.

Vishwash Kumar Ramesh was somehow thrown clear when the Air India flight exploded and split in two.

Even more remarkably, Ramesh was able to walk away from the crash with only minor injuries.

It seems like an unthinkable fluke, but Ramesh is not the first person to survive a plane crash through bizarre and surprising circumstances.

Here are some other remarkable plane crash survival stories.

Llandow crash

Eighty people were killed in what was then the world's worst air disaster in 1950.

The plane stalled on landing at Llandow Aerodrome in Wales and broke into pieces on landing.

The Avro Tudor V had been stripped so more seats could be put on board for the trip to watch Wales play Ireland in a rugby international.

Two survivors sitting in the newly installed seats at the tail walked away from the crash unharmed.

The only other survivor was a passenger who was in the toilet as the plane landed. He spent four months in hospital.

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The 3km fall

The chances of surviving a mid-air plane explosion are so small that it is almost beyond comprehension.

Flying over the Amazon rainforest on Christmas Eve, 1971, a Lockheed L-188A flew into a dark cloud and was struck by lightning.

Teenage girl Juliane Koepcke was the sole survivor and recounted how the plane went into a nosedive.

"Suddenly the noise stopped and I was outside the plane. I was in a freefall, strapped to my seat bench and hanging head-over-heels.

"The whispering of the wind was the only noise I could hear."

The teen blacked out as she was spinning uncontrollably to the ground, so it is not certain how she survived the landing.

But ploughing through more than 30m of the thick leaves and branches of the Amazon rainforest canopy had slowed her down enough that the final impact did not kill her.

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The plane bombing survivor

When a briefcase bomb exploded on a Yugoslavian plane in 1972, 23 passengers and four crewmembers were sucked out of the wreckage. The chances of any surviving were surely zero.

But, locals from a nearby village rushed to the wreckage and found 22-year-old flight attendant Vesna Vulovic still strapped into her seat and very much alive.

She fell from a distance of ten kilometres up – no one has ever fallen from that high without a parachute and survived.

An explosion in the baggage department split the plane into several pieces, sucking the passengers and other flight crew out of the plane.

Vesna Vulovic became a national hero following her incredible survival story.

But Vulovic was pinned in the fuselage by a food cart, keeping her in place as it fell to the ground.

Her section of the aircraft landed at an angle on a snowy mountainside in then-Czechoslovakia.

The trees and the snow, as well as the angle of the mountain, made for a softer landing.

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Stranded in the ocean

Bahia Bakari was a 12-year-old returning from a wedding when the Yemen Airways plane she was in crashed into the Indian Ocean in 2009.

Clinging to wreckage in the pitch black, Bakari remembered hearing cries for help from other passengers.

But when help finally arrived 11 hours later, she was the only one still alive.

Bakari suffered a broken collarbone, a broken hip, burns and other injuries.

But she had no lasting physical injuries.

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The safest spot?

When Jeju Air Flight 2216 crashed on landing after a bird strike in December last year, the only survivors were two flight attendants seated at the rear of the plane.

The crash split the fuselage, separating where the attendants were sitting from the remainder of the plane.

But despite the old adage, the rear is not necessarily the safest part of the plane.

The wreckage of a Boeing 737-800 plane operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air lies at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Korea, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

"There isn't any data that shows a correlation of seating to survivability," says Hassan Shahidi, president of the Flight Safety Foundation said after the crash.

"Every accident is different."

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