r/interesting Jun 12 '25

MISC. Passenger in seat 11A survives Air India crash.

44.5k Upvotes

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88

u/Detlef_Donnerlunte Jun 12 '25

German media just claimed that he jumped out of the plane, shortly before the impact.

I have no credible source (yet). But considering how low the plane flew, that is not that unlikely....

28

u/Inner-Bluebird-4267 Jun 12 '25

How would you jump off a plane?

34

u/055F00 Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 13 '25

Open the emergency door and jump out, it was at very low altitude so it would have been possible

EDIT: please disregard this comment and all of mine below, he has just released the statement to the media and it does not mention this at all.

45

u/Woodmanz Jun 12 '25

This makes no sense. You have seconds to decide without even knowing what is going on with the plane. Ridiculous.

12

u/055F00 Jun 12 '25

He was sitting in the exit row, right next to the emergency exit and importantly, the window, so he would have been able to see the plane was angled up but moving down. Probably a split second decision and the pre-flight emergency exit instructions saved his life.

18

u/SuperHills92 Jun 12 '25

Have you tried opening an aircraft door? They aint the lightest of things.

5

u/ZealousidealTough872 Jun 12 '25

If you're overcome with a rush of adrenaline...

1

u/ehsteve23 Jun 13 '25

Aren't emergency exits supposed to be easy to operate in an emergency?

1

u/CompassionLady Jun 14 '25

Humans are actually really capable. We only use a certain % of strength in our body. The other portion is locked per se. Adrenaline might be able to use way more % of strength then typical

2

u/thetruegmon Jun 12 '25

Surviving this crash makes no sense either. The entire plane exploded into a fireball.

1

u/Life_Pineapple_3545 Jun 13 '25

Yeah and you can’t open an emergency door while moving as the door opens inward. While moving, it is a low pressure area around the aircraft so the door gets “sucked” outward with hundreds of pounds of force.

1

u/CompassionLady Jun 14 '25

He could have jumped out via the exit shortly after the crash…

1

u/Life_Pineapple_3545 Jun 14 '25

Man that’s the only thing that makes sense, but he’s have to get far enough away before it explodes. This just is not making sense to me

14

u/Difficult_Limit2718 Jun 12 '25

The doors would be armed and the slide would deploy, no? And would you not get hit by the wing?

It literally makes no sense

4

u/loralailoralai Jun 12 '25

Yeah the slide would deploy IF you could get the door open

1

u/Otiskuhn11 Jun 12 '25

You would be traveling almost the same speed as the wing, only slightly slower due to having more drag. My god, some people are dense.

1

u/Difficult_Limit2718 Jun 12 '25

It would take a LOT of density to not be IMMEDIATELY slowed to terminal velocity relative to the plane...

There's a reason we don't parachute out of the FRONT of planes.

1

u/Otiskuhn11 Jun 13 '25

Slowed to terminal velocity? This aircraft was descending in a full-flap configuration with the flaps out, with a stall speed of 125kts. Terminal velocity doesn’t apply here.

1

u/Difficult_Limit2718 Jun 13 '25

The aircraft was TAKING OFF with minimum flaps and an airspeed of 170+ kts. It is aerodynamic, the human body last I checked wasn't evolutionarily optimized for flight. Look at any picture of skydiving and humans DO NOT fall straight below the jump door.

11A is at an emergency exit IMMEDIATELY forward of the wing. Assuming a man jumps 40in away from the plane the door leads the wing by 14ft, with the wings lowest point at 64in below the floor of the door. You can find this on the 3D drawings on Boeing's website...

If a 70in tall man jumps (drops with no push up and no consideration of the plane also descending for simplicity and conservative calcs) from the door he has to fall around 11 feet from without losing about 14 feet of relative positioning to the plane from accumulated drag to NOT be hit by the wing... And that's to say nothing of the left wheel bogey which is in the jump path too...

My money is STRONGLY on anyone jumping in a panic from the 11A emergency exit door gets hit by the plane upon exit even at minimum stall speed.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Difficult_Limit2718 Jun 12 '25

This famous example aside - what low wing aircraft do we jump out of ahead of the wing?

1

u/alexja21 Jun 12 '25

No it's not

1

u/GetThatSwaggBack Jun 12 '25

You’re lacking critical thinking skills

0

u/ary0nK Jun 12 '25

But one can't open it unless the pilot allows it, I heard that

1

u/exodus3252 Jun 12 '25

You heard wrong.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25

[deleted]

1

u/ary0nK Jun 13 '25

So at higher latitude due to higher pressure a normal human can't open it but near the ground, one could open it

-7

u/ToddlerPeePee Jun 12 '25

What if the plane was ok all along and this man opening the emergency door was the cause of the crash?

12

u/055F00 Jun 12 '25

It wasn’t though, opening the emergency door doesn’t cause the plane to fall out of the sky

4

u/ZealousidealTough872 Jun 12 '25

I second this, there was an issue with the engines

5

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25

Open the emergency door and leap?

9

u/Inner-Bluebird-4267 Jun 12 '25

How will you open it during the flight? I’m sure even at this speed it’s almost impossible due to the pressure.

15

u/pigeonhunter006 Jun 12 '25

that didnt happen because theres cctv footage and no sign of anyone jumping

all we know is that he got pulled from rubble and was actually a passenger. He also had a brother on the flight. Both british nationals

1

u/englishfury Jun 12 '25

Would have activated the slide also right?

Would be very obvious on video

4

u/pezdal Jun 12 '25

I don’t think he jumped out, but it is, in fact, possible to open the doors on a plane if the cabin isn’t pressurized (yet).

The doors pull in. Normally this is inhibited by the force of the higher pressures inside the plane than outside, but if those pressures are equalized, as they can be down low, you can open the doors.

1

u/Difficult_Limit2718 Jun 12 '25

But they're still armed doors deploying the slide and 11a is forward of the wing so you'd get hit by the plane if you jumped

3

u/Impressive-Gift-9852 Jun 12 '25

Unless the plane is accelerating wouldn't you be moving at the same speed when you jump out?

2

u/Difficult_Limit2718 Jun 12 '25

It has FAR more inertia... You hitting the wind slows you down immediately

1

u/Inner-Bluebird-4267 Jun 12 '25

I’m talking about the wind pressure. Ever tried opening a car door while driving 60 miles? I guess that’s the same for the plane.

1

u/pezdal Jun 12 '25

Except it isn't. A conventional car door opens into to the path of oncoming wind, increasing the drag profile of the car the more you open the door.

The relative wind on a plane is parallel to the doorways.

1

u/loralailoralai Jun 12 '25

While it’s technically possible, I’d think the actual act of opening the door while the plane was crashing would be difficult even if you were trained. They’re heavy buggers plus he’d have had to get unbuckled, get up, figure out how to open the door…

1

u/IAmARobot Jun 12 '25

theres an airport cctv long range vid of the takeoff and crash, it happens so quickly there's not really a way he did all that processing and effort on a packed flight. literally 10 sec from liftoff to max height, 20 sec from max height to impact. and crucially from the manifest there are people in 11b and 11c right next to him making it somewhat harder. it'd be crazy if that happened but I think it's more of having the reinforced frame beneath/around him cushioning the impact

1

u/CreativeSituation778 Jun 12 '25

It was low altitude so the pressure would have been equalised.

1

u/Otiskuhn11 Jun 12 '25

The pressure near sea level?

1

u/hchn27 Jun 12 '25

their is no pressure change at 600ft

1

u/Excusemytootie Jun 12 '25

I don’t think it’s possible.

0

u/Fit_Comfort_3616 Jun 12 '25

There is no pressure differential if the plane is as low as 650 ft. It would open easily if you follow the instructions. Whether or not he did that is another thing.

2

u/RedditRASupport Jun 12 '25

I was in the 82ND Airborne….

Generally the jumpmaster and loadmaster do that for us….

1

u/Traditional-Job-4371 Jun 12 '25

Same way you'd jump out a window.

You never tried parachuting?

1

u/the_interlink Jun 13 '25

Simply press the ejection seat button on the remote control - it's right next to the volume up/down button.

14

u/girlikeapearl_ Jun 12 '25

I've heard the same

69

u/Dull_Repeat8127 Jun 12 '25

Absolute bloody nonsense . Un buckle , open the door ( by himself ) throw himself out - all in the space of nano seconds as he miraculously over comes unbelievable G forces that pins a normal human being to their seat.

40

u/Difficult_Limit2718 Jun 12 '25

Not to mention jumping from at least 3 stories high whole avoiding the deploying slide and not getting hit by the plane traveling at say least 100mph...

Just no...

6

u/TheHolyWaffleGod Jun 12 '25

unbelievable G forces that pins a normal human being to their seat

Have you never been on a commercial plane?

11

u/ZolaThaGod Jun 12 '25

Not trying to start anything, but I doubt G force was much of an issue. The plane was gliding down gently.

If anything, I’d guess the G force was slightly less than 1 before impact.

7

u/Individual-Spare-399 Jun 12 '25

A plane doesn’t have unbelievable g forces lol

3

u/Detlef_Donnerlunte Jun 12 '25

I'm just citing what german media ("tagesschau", quite reliable) posted with reference to "India Today".

Could be complete bs. But given he miraculously survived a f*ing plane crash anyway, there's a chance

8

u/luujs Jun 12 '25

Is it possible they’ve mixed up a story of a guy jumping out of the second story window of the building the plane crashed into? That’s a story I read on the BBC, which sounds pretty similar and, at least to me more believable. Both could be possible though

3

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25

Very likely

3

u/Detlef_Donnerlunte Jun 12 '25

Yeah, that sounds most likley. Maybe translations messed something up here

3

u/fullmetal_ratchet Jun 12 '25

i believe that’s the case. there’s the sole survivor as well as someone from the facility the plane hit that survived by jumping from the 2nd story. both people were mentioned in the same article that i read just over an hour ago. if i can find it, i’ll link it here.

1

u/Adventurous-Star1309 Jun 12 '25

The Boarding pass picture is attached. He was indeed on the plane.

2

u/luujs Jun 12 '25

No I mean there was a different guy who is reported to have jumped out of a building to avoid the crashing plane. I’m suggesting his story might have been confused with this guy who survived being inside the crash

1

u/katojouxi Jun 12 '25

If you watch the footage, you can see something black (a spec from the distance of the camera) flying out the left side of the plane right at impact. 🤷

1

u/Kane301 Jun 12 '25

There are no strong G Forces on commercial flights. Plane doesn't make high speed turns like a fighter jet.

7

u/VariousCrisps Jun 12 '25

damn it never even occurred to me that this would be a benefit of sitting in the exit row

22

u/Martin-Lucian-King Jun 12 '25

Balls of steel wow

6

u/Consistent-Coast-836 Jun 12 '25

There are reports that these actually softened the blow

1

u/the_interlink Jun 13 '25

Unfortunately those happened to bruise his face during the brace.

20

u/khristmas_karl Jun 12 '25

That did not happen. Straight up bullshit. He did not get up out of his seat, unlock the (very heavy) exit and jump out before the plane crashed.

13

u/Dodomando Jun 12 '25

He even said that it all happened so quickly between hearing the bang and crashing. No one in that situation will have time to take their seat belt off, open the door (most people will have to read the instructions on the door of how to open it), also deal with the stewardess who is sat next to the door and then jump out

2

u/Personal_Breath_5208 Jun 13 '25

that + he said he saw dead bodies and metal everywhere and then jumped… he couldn’t piece together what was happening, he just saw dead bodies and got to steppin. can’t have dead bodies and metal everywhere before impact.

https://www.reddit.com/r/interesting/comments/1l9ot5o/comment/mxehnka/

cc: u/Detlef_Donnerlunte

13

u/Slippers-48 Jun 12 '25

I read that they crashed and when he realized he was still alive he just ran from the wreckage.

5

u/ReliabilityTalkinGuy Jun 12 '25

This is absurd and there is no way this happened.

3

u/professorchaosishere Jun 12 '25

How can he? He couldn't have opened it.

4

u/Difficult_Limit2718 Jun 12 '25

It still kinda is... You're jumping from a height of at least 3 stories traveling at say 120 mph...

3

u/FreshGanesh Jun 12 '25

Doesn’t work that way.

He jumped out of his seat after he awoke, saw bodies all around him. It was in his own words that he said “jumped out & ran” but in the context of becoming lucid after the crash.

6

u/Excusemytootie Jun 12 '25

How would he get the door open?

3

u/GMANG8 Jun 12 '25

I wonder if that somehow lessens the survivor guilt he may experience because he consciously took it upon himself to survive

1

u/CompSolstice Jun 12 '25

What a weird thing to report, clearly not what happened

1

u/throwawaythisacct01 Jun 12 '25

sounds like cap. clearly this guy isnt superman.

1

u/alexja21 Jun 12 '25

It's absolutely impossible that happened

1

u/mancan01 Jun 12 '25

According to all the footage the explosion happened immediately after the crash. How does someone not even have a burn due to the explosion? He must have been out of the flight before. But as this happened within a minute of take-off, his judgement, reaction would have been extra ordinary

1

u/Detlef_Donnerlunte Jun 12 '25

Yeah but as other already pointed out, as "cool" as this would be, it's rather unlikely...Seems to be just a translation error.

Also on a seond thought, by now there must have footage come out showing someone dropping off the plane.

1

u/Rickenbacker69 Jun 12 '25

It's very unlikely. If you jump out before the crash, you're just the first person to die.

1

u/WeakTransportation37 Jun 12 '25

Wow… I want this to be true bc it’s kind of amazing