Clip of Air India crash survivor Vishwas Kumar Ramesh going back to look for brother viral with conspiracy theories
Following the devastating crash of Gatwick-bound Air India flight 171, a new video purportedly of Vishwas Kumar Ramesh, the sole survivor of the tragic accident, is viral on social media. The footage shows him walking towards the crash site, which is engulfed in flames. Ramesh was among the 242 aboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner that crashed into the BJ Medical College in the densely populated area of Meghani Nagar in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad within 30 seconds of take-off. The accident, among the worst tragedies in recent aviation history, claimed the lives of 241, including crew, and many others residing in the premises of the medical college.
The survival of Ramesh, who was seated in an emergency exit in the aircraft, has been nothing short of miraculous. Earlier, a video, shared by many news outlets, showed Ramesh walking out of a building gate as plumes of smoke could be seen in the background. This was different from the now-viral video, which shows him walking towards the site of the crash.
Social media users have widely circulated the video questioning why he walked towards the site of the crash and emerged afterwards. Wondering what unfolded, many insinuated it was fishy that a man “shown as a survivor” was walking into the accident and coming out later. Some even said that this was the “reality” that was not being broadcast by media outlets. Below are some claims from X and Instagram. (Archives 1, 2)
Users on Facebook also shared the viral clip. Screenshots below:
Fact Check
Since information on passengers in the flight and Vishwas Kumar Ramesh’s boarding pass were published by many media outlets, we were certain that he was on the flight.
But to understand what was being shown in the viral video, we broke it down into key frames, and ran reverse image searches on some of them. This led us to several short videos where a man bearing a close resemblance to Vishwas Kumar Ramesh is seen entering the crash site more than once and exiting. Alt News went through many such videos generated by those at the site and tried to piece together the chain of events.
Our research found that Ramesh first exited the crash site when there were very few people around and tried to go back in twice to look for his brother, who was on the same flight. The new viral video, shared with conspiracy theories, shows him re-entering the crash site for the first time. He tried entering it a second time, too when there were more people at the site, who beckoned to him and called him back. When he emerged from the site this time, he was guided by these people to an ambulance. A video of his emergence and being taken to an ambulance was the same one shared by news outlets.
Here’s a breakdown of how we arrived at this:
We found one Instagram reel uploaded by user @ravibarthuniya on June 12, showing a man in a white t-shirt, standing across from the crash site, making his way across the street and entering the premises. His clothing and the fact that he was limping matched the description and visuals of Vishwas Kumar Ramesh seen emerging from the site.
We compared visuals in the viral video and this reel and found they were the same. Below is a comparison.
Thus, the viral clip does show Vishwas Kumar Ramesh entering the crash site. We also noticed that there was a scooter parked by the compound wall he entered and only few people around.
However, when this reel is compared with the video shared by news outlets showing him emerging from the site and being guided towards an ambulance, some things appear different.
For instance, the scooter against the wall seen in the first comparison image was removed. Also, there were a lot more people present at the site. This suggests that some time had passed between the two videos, and the clip of him emerging was taken later.
We also found another video on Instagram of Ramesh using his phone and entering the crash site. However, this is different from the previous video of him entering.
We also noticed that the scooter was removed and, unlike in the previous instance, the dog is absent. There are also more people. Multiple videos we watched confirmed that he entered the crash site not once, but twice.
In the second instance, the people present at the site call out to him after he goes in. When he comes out, a man in a pink shirt and blue turban is visible. Based on the video shared by news outlets, we know that he is the same person who guides Ramesh to an ambulance.
A video report by BBC India, posted on Instagram on June 18, identifies the man in the turban as Satinder Singh Sandhu. Sandhu, who supervises a fleet of ambulances, was the first emergency responder at the crash site.
We then reached out to Sandhu, who told us that when he arrived at the spot, he saw Ramesh going back into the premises. “I was just done shifting a victim to the ambulance. Then I saw him (Ramesh) near the gate. He went in and then came out again, after which I intervened and moved him to an ambulance,” he told us in Hindi.
Sandhu told the BBC that Ramesh, even after his rescue, “kept trying to go back to the site of the crash.”
“He had no idea what he was doing. He kept going in and out of the complex. We told him to stop, and dragged him away to an ambulance so that he could receive medical care… That’s when he said to me that his relative was trapped inside and he wanted to go save him. We did not speak a word after that,” he told the publication. At the time, Sandhu had no idea the man was the lone plane crash survivor. The emergency responder gave similar accounts to news outlets PTI, NDTV and UK-based DailyMail.
Thus, we were able to conclude that Vishwas Kumar Ramesh emerged from the crash site and tried going back near the burning wreckage at least twice to look for his brother. Piecemeal footage on social media from different angles and at different times has led to confusion regarding the chain of events. Alt News was unable to find footage that shows him walking away from the crash site the very first time. But we were able to establish that the now-viral video shows him trying to re-enter the first time, most likely to look for and save his brother.
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