A 47-year-old plane crash survivor experienced a deja vu moment when he learned of Air India Flight 171’s demise on Thursday, June 12.
Ruangsak James Loychusak, who is a singer, escaped a Thai Airways disaster with his life in 1998 after the Airbus A310 he was on ditched in a swamp while trying to land.
After conveying his condolences to the families of loved ones lost in the Ahmedabad disaster, he observed something eerie.
Along with differences like the aircraft manufacturer, the number of survivors, and the location of the crash, he noted a detail that mirrors his ordeal to the T—and he says it is giving him “goosebumps.”
Loychusak says he avoided talking about his experience for a long time
Image credits: JC Gellidon
The Thai singer recounted the accident’s effect on him, saying: “I had difficulty flying for 10 years after the crash. I would struggle to breathe, even though the air circulation was normal.
“I avoided speaking to anyone and always stared outside the window, blocking anyone from closing it to maintain my sense of safety.
“If I saw dark clouds or a rainstorm outside, I would feel terrible, like I was in hell. I can still remember the sounds, smells, and even the taste of the water in the swamp the plane crashed into.”
Image credits: SumitHansd / X
The anomaly that made him speak about the ordeal again was, as he put it in his Facebook post, “survivor of the plane crash in India. He was sitting in the same seat number as me, 11 A.”
Due to the trauma caused by the incident, it was a long time before Loychusak was able to open up about what he had experienced—unlike Viswashkumar Ramesh, who is the only survivor of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner that crashed minutes after takeoff.
Ramesh is the only person who can give an account of the circumstances inside the plane leading up to the crash
Image credits: jamesruangsak
As the sole survivor of a disaster that took 242 lives, 40-year-old Ramesh is the only living witness of the conditions in the cabin leading up to the crash.
The British national said he noticed a loud noise on board when things started to go wrong about 30 seconds into the flight.
When he eventually opened his eyes and registered that he was alive, he was surprised. He also spoke of people dying around him. Ramesh, as noted by his ticket, was seated at the front of economy class in seat 11A.
Data shows that generally, the middle section of a commercial liner is the most dangerous
Image credits: jamesruangsak
The coincidence, Reuters reports, has triggered ideas about seat 11A being the safest, but the speculation has since been rubbished by Aviation professionals.
Thirty five years of crash data suggests that travelers in the back third of the aircraft had a 32% chance of not surviving a similar or same disaster as Flight 171.
Image credits: SeatGuru
Those who sat in the middle section proved somewhat more susceptible to demise with a percentage rate of 39.
Travelers seated in the front for the plane, including business class and the forward section of economy, came a close second at 38%.
Thirty five years of data confirms this
Image credits: rehnedotum/ X
Time, who was granted access to the Federal Aviation Administration’s CSRTG Aircraft Accident Database, also found that seats right at the back of the aircraft were safest with the statistics showing the lowest fatality rate (28%).
The report noted that with a 44% fatality rate, “the worst-faring seats were on the aisle in the middle third of the cabin.”
Notably, these findings do not explain Ruangsak James Loychusak’s survival (along with 45 other survivors of the same crash) or Viswashkumar Ramesh’s ability to walk away from what was left of Flight 171.
Image credits: Waldemar
But Ron Bartsch, who chairs an Aviation Consulting Sydney firm in Sydney, Australia, thinks he understands why.
Others say the survival rate cannot be based on seat location
Bartsch told the outlet: “In this particular instance, because the passenger was sitting adjacent to the emergency exit, this was obviously the safest seat on the day.”
Image credits: I_amMukhtar / X
Mitchell Fox, a director in the U.S.-based non-profit Flight Safety Foundation, also weighed in and described conflicting beliefs and statistics by saying:
“Each accident is different, and it is impossible to predict survivability based on seat location.”
It is worth noting that despite this controversy, commercial air travel is one of the safest transport modes. The US National Safety Council states that the odds of dying in a car accident, 1 in 102, dwarfs that of air travel, which is 1 in 205,552.
Social Media disagrees, they think that it has something to do with seat 11A
Image credits: Ritesh Shukla/Getty
In response to Loychusak’s story on Facebook, one netizen wrote, “There is an angel protecting that seat number.”
“Seat No 11 must be special then, now the battle[s] for seat No 11 booking begin[…],” predicted another.
Another netizen however, thinks it has something to do with the man himself and dubbed him the “luckiest man on earth.”
Social media thinks he is the luckiest man on earth
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