“compiled: Elmili TK”
In a twist that blurs the line between coincidence and chilling fate, two plane crashes — nearly 30 years apart — produced only one survivor each. The common thread? Both men were seated in seat 11A.
The most recent tragedy unfolded on June 13, 2025, when Air India Flight AI-171 crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad, killing 241 of 242 people onboard. The sole survivor was 38-year-old British-Indian businessman Ramesh Viswashkumar. Remarkably, he had been seated in 11A.
Decades earlier, in 1998, Thai pop star Ruangsak Loychusak survived the crash of Thai Airways Flight TG261 while seated in the very same seat — 11A. That crash killed 101 of 146 passengers.
A Survival Defying Logic
Ramesh, dazed and bloodied, managed to crawl through a broken exit near the aircraft’s front section, which had landed in an open area after slamming into a building. “I still can’t believe how I got out alive,” he later said from his hospital bed.
His brother Ajay, seated in 11J, was among the dead — turning Ramesh’s miraculous escape into a moment of unbearable duality: life spared, family shattered.
Loychusak’s story mirrored the same strangeness. His life after the crash was marked by years of trauma and anxiety. In interviews, he recalled the suffocating grip of survivor’s guilt and the terror of flying again.
Coincidence or Clue?
Aviation analysts maintain that exits rows — like 11A often is — improve survival odds. But two one-in-a-million escapes in the same seat number stretches coincidence to its limit.
Leaked seating charts and crash data suggest both men sat near or in exit rows, which might explain part of the luck. Still, it’s hard to dismiss the eerie symbolism: 11A now stands as a seat with a legacy far beyond any airline manifest.
Living the Aftermath
Both survivors continue to grapple with the mental toll. For Ramesh, the emotional wound is fresh; for Loychusak, the scars linger from decades past. Yet both stories are a testament to resilience — and to the razor-thin line between life and death in aviation disasters.
As investigations continue into the Air India crash, and as the families of victims mourn, one detail continues to captivate the public imagination: how seat 11A, twice, became the last place of survival in skies filled with tragedy.
