How just one person can survive a deadly plane crash

Q: How can just one person, out of hundreds of people, survive a plane crash? What is the scientific explanation?

Krishna: When several factors decide outcomes, they follow the interplay of scientific rules and routes and exactly fit into the reaction realities.

This recent Air India's crash was one of the the deadliest air accidents in history—241 people on board died—with a sole survivor.

In history, eight plane crashes have killed over 100 people that included one survivor. Most recently, a 19-year-old woman survived a Cuban plane crash that killed 112 in 2018. And in 2009, a 12-year-old girl survived a Yemen crash that claimed the lives of 152.

So the likelihood of survival in a crash of this nature is incredibly low. When that happens, we think about a low probability becoming a reality. 

A low probability event becoming a reality refers to the occurrence of an event with a small likelihood, often expressed as a probability value between 0 and 1, where 0 signifies impossibility and 1 signifies certainty. While unlikely, these events can still happen, and sometimes, even when the probability is very low, the potential consequences can be significant. 

The narrow band of variables, including position in the aircraft, angle of impact, body orientation, something that can stop the impact,  restraint usage, debris path, the right routes fire or smoke takes and immediate rescue or self-evacuation, all had to be in place for that one person to survive. 

An Air India plane fell from the sky and split apart shortly after takeoff on  last week, killing 241 people on board and about two dozen on the ground in Ahmedabad, India. Viswashkumar Ramesh was the lone passenger who survived, telling the India state media that the side of the plane where he was seated fell onto the ground floor of a building and there was space for him to escape after the door broke open. He unfastened his seat belt and forced himself out of the plane as he wasn't badly injured.

Ramesh was sitting in an exit row, which is typically reinforced but is also where the wing spar—the "backbone" of the wing—and the fuel tanks are located.

"This actually makes it a more dangerous place to be seated in that type of crash," experts say. Survivability is rare.

These experts say the tail end is usually the safe one. 

However,  there are times when the momentum of a crash is uneven and creates areas where "survivability pockets" exist in the plane. A survivability pocket is a small area within a crashed vehicle—especially an aircraft—where the forces of impact, fire and structural collapse are mitigated enough to allow a person to survive, even when the rest of the structure is destroyed.

This may have been what happened in this case.

But more variables would have had to align as well for Ramesh to walk away from the crash.

The fuselage also had to detach without damaging the area where Ramesh was sitting.

In that case, the fact that he was in an exit row hastened his escape, reducing his exposure to the smoke, that would have first made him unconscious and then killed and fire that would have engulfed him. 

The interplay of all scientific rules played in his favour and he survived. 

Everybody is saying, he is 'lucky'. 

Scientifically, luck is not a magical force but rather a combination of chance events and how individuals perceive and respond to them. It involves the interplay of random occurrences and our cognitive processes. Essentially,  these people who you call lucky tend to be more open to opportunities, listen to their well informed inner guidance, and maintain an enthusiastic  mindset, which can lead to favourable outcomes. 

This person acted immediately as soon as he realized he was alive because of favourable forces. Before the smoke and fire engulfed him and killed him, he came out of the plane.  That is how he saved himself too. 

Favourable scientific forces and quick action on this person's part, despite everything, saved him.