1998 Thai Airline crash survivor says his seat number was also 11A

Dubai: In an extraordinary twist of fate, seat 11A has become the most talked-about airline seat on the internet after two survivors, nearly three decades apart, walked away from devastating plane crashes while occupying the exact same seat number.

Thai actor and singer Ruangsak Loychusak was scrolling through his Facebook feed when he stopped dead in his tracks. The news about the Air India crash survivor hit him like a bolt of lightning – not because of the tragedy itself, but because of one chilling detail: the survivor's seat number, as first reported by The Telegraph.

Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British-Indian man, was the sole survivor of Air India Flight AI-171 that crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025, just 30 seconds after takeoff. He was seated in 11A, right next to the emergency exit, and managed to jump out the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner as it crashed into a medical college building.

For Ruangsak, this wasn't just another news story. Twenty-seven years earlier, on December 11, 1998, he had survived Thai Airways Flight TG261 while sitting in the exact same seat – 11A.

The Thai Airways tragedy was devastating. The Airbus A310 crashed while attempting to land in southern Thailand, killing 101 of the 146 people on board, with 45 survivors. Ruangsak, then just 20 years old, was among those who lived to tell the tale.

Fast forward to 2025, and the Air India crash painted a different picture. Of the 242 people aboard – 230 passengers and 12 crew members – only one person survived. That sole survivor? Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, sitting in seat 11A.

Taking to Facebook, Ruangsak wrote: "I had goosebumps when I saw it. The lone survivor of the plane crash in India was sitting in the same seat number as me—11A. I want to offer my condolences to all those who lost loved ones in the tragedy."

The coincidence is purely statistical – different airlines, different aircraft models, different seating configurations. The 11A seat on a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner isn't in the same physical location as the 11A on an Airbus A310. Yet the parallel has captured global attention, with many calling it a 'miracle seat.'

Ramesh later told reporters from his hospital bed: "I just walked out" after escaping through the emergency exit. His survival, according to aviation experts, was nothing short of extraordinary given the circumstances.