Thai crash survivor finds eerie link to Air India tragedy: miracle seat 11A stuns the world

Ruangsak Loychusak, now 47, was just 20 years old when he survived the Thai Airways Flight TG261 crash on December 11, 1998.

The aircraft plunged into a swamp in southern Thailand during landing, killing 101 of the 146 people on board.

Upon hearing that British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, the only survivor of the Air India Flight AI171 crash, had been seated in 11A, Ruangsak said he was overcome with goosebumps.

“Survivor of a plane crash in India. He sat in the same seat as me. 11A,” Ruangsak wrote in a Facebook post in Thai.

Although he no longer has the boarding pass from 1998, he said the seat number had been documented in news reports from the time.

The Boeing Dreamliner went down shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad airport on Thursday afternoon. Of the 242 people on board, Ramesh was the lone survivor.

Ruangsak, who has openly spoken about his trauma and survivor’s guilt, didn’t board another flight for ten years after the crash.

He has often referred to his life since then as a “second life” and extended his condolences to the families affected by the Air India tragedy. Public fascination has grown around what many are now calling the “miracle of seat 11A.”

Ramesh, who was seated by the emergency exit, was reportedly thrown from the aircraft on impact.

Despite sustaining multiple injuries, he managed to walk away from the wreckage and reach a waiting ambulance.

Speaking from his hospital bed, Ramesh told DD News, “For some time, I thought I was also going to die. But when I opened my eyes, I realised I was alive and I tried to unbuckle myself from the seat and escape from where I could.”

The remarkable survival has sparked a wave of curiosity online, with many social media users now expressing interest in booking emergency exit seats—particularly 11A—on future flights.