Is 11A The Safest Seat On A Plane?

On June 12, 2025, tragedy struck just moments after takeoff when Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner en route to London Gatwick, crashed into a building in Ahmedabad, India.

The aircraft, carrying 242 passengers and crew, slammed into the B.J. Medical College; 241 lives were lost on board, along with at least 28 more on the ground. It was the first fatal crash involving a Boeing 787 since its debut in 2011; a black mark on an aircraft long considered one of the safest.

Yet amid the wreckage, one man emerged alive.

Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a 40-year-old British national, survived. His seat? 11A; an emergency exit row. According to reports, Ramesh had changed seats last-minute, moving from 11J to 11A — a seemingly minor decision that may have saved his life.

The seat placed him beside the exit; a location many experts say increases your chances of escape when everything else goes wrong.

Ramesh later recounted waking up surrounded by flames, bodies, and debris; injured but conscious. With wounds to his chest, eyes, and feet, he managed to crawl free from the twisted fuselage; running blindly until help arrived. Medical teams stabilised him; witnesses called it a miracle.

Aviation safety data backs the idea that exit-row seats offer better odds. Studies suggest passengers within five rows of an exit are significantly more likely to survive; especially in fires, water landings, or structural collapse.

Seat 11A wasn’t just close to the exit, it was the exit. But experts are quick to add a caveat: seat location helps, but it doesn’t guarantee survival.

The investigation into Flight 171 continues; mechanical failure and pilot error are both being scrutinised. Questions will be asked of Boeing; of maintenance teams; of Air India’s protocols. But none of those questions will answer what Ramesh already knows that on that day, in that seat, everything went wrong, and somehow still went right.

So, is 11A the safest seat on a plane? Possibly. Probably not. But for one lucky man who lived while hundreds perished, it was the only seat that mattered.