What began as a routine flight home after a business trip ended in smoke, sirens, and a devastating silence. For the Ramesh family, it became a day that split their world in two — one brother alive, the other lost.
Ajaykumar and Viswash Ramesh were just two brothers heading home to the UK from India. They had wrapped up their trip and boarded Air India flight AI171 on Thursday — Ajay in seat 11J, Viswash across the aisle in 11A. The flight was meant to take them from Ahmedabad to Gatwick. But they never made it.
Mid-flight, something went horribly wrong. The plane crashed. Flames tore through the cabin. Screams filled the air. And then — nothing.
Viswash, seated beside the emergency exit, was the only one who made it out. Bloodied and disoriented, he stumbled from the wreckage, clutching at anyone who would listen. His first words were not about his own condition — but a desperate cry for his brother.
“Find Ajay. You must find Ajay.”
Back in Leicester, their family was shaken by a single phone call. It was Viswash. He was alive. But Ajay was nowhere to be found. At first, there was hope — the kind that fights its way in even when logic tells you not to let it. Maybe he was unconscious, maybe his name was on the wrong list, maybe he was taken to a different hospital.
That hope faded late Thursday night, when Air India confirmed the worst: of the 242 people on board, only one had survived. That one was Viswash. Ajay was not among the living.
At home, their mother Manibai couldn’t speak through her sobs. Their youngest brother, Nayankumar, spoke for the family.
“It’s a miracle at least one of them survived,”
he said, though his voice carried no relief — only disbelief.
“But we’re just baffled. We don’t know how to feel. That’s your answer — just look at her.”
Their grief isn’t linear. It’s twisted with guilt and questions. Viswash is alive — but broken, physically and emotionally. He repeats the same plea in the hospital. His face, streaked with blood and soot, is etched with confusion and longing.
Their cousin, Ajay Valgi, says what they’re all thinking:
“They were right next to each other. And now… we don’t know what happened to Ajay.”
The brothers had built their lives in Leicester. They traveled for work, tied to family businesses and textile ventures. Viswash once headed RMV Fashion, a company that closed in 2022, but their bond went beyond business. They were each other’s mirror — a team since childhood.
Now, that mirror is shattered.
Ajaykumar’s phone still rings. No answer. His seat is now a number etched into a report. The ashes of what was supposed to be a safe return.
And for the Ramesh family, that silence on the other end of the line echoes louder than any explosion. It’s a silence that says the brother, the son, the cousin they loved — is gone.
But his memory isn’t.
It lingers in the hospital room, in every anguished word Viswash whispers. It rides in the backseat with a grieving mother. It clings to a family in Leicester trying to navigate a tragedy too vast for words.
In the aftermath of a disaster that took 241 lives, one remains. One brother survives, repeating the name of the one who didn’t — hoping that somehow, saying it will bring him back.
But deep down, he knows: the nightmare didn’t end with fire. It began with silence.
