Surviving the Unthinkable: How Two Men in Seat 11A Escaped Death Decades Apart

When Thai pop star Ruangsak "James" Loychusak boarded Thai Airways Flight 261 in December 1998, he had no idea he was about to be thrust into a life-or-death ordeal. Nor did Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British-Indian tech consultant, expect his seat on Air India Flight 171 in June 2025 to become part of one of the most chilling coincidences in aviation history.

Separated by 27 years, two different airlines, and two different countries, both men survived deadly plane crashes—as the sole survivors. Their common thread? Both were seated in Seat 11A.

This isn’t just an eerie coincidence—it’s a mind-bending twist of fate that has aviation experts, numerologists, and the public alike searching for meaning.

🎤 1998: A Thai Idol’s Brush With Death

On December 11, 1998, Thai Airways Flight 261 was making its final approach to Surat Thani Airport when things took a tragic turn. The Airbus A310, battling bad weather and visibility issues, stalled and crashed into a rice field.

Out of 146 people on board, 101 perished. One of the few to walk away from the wreckage was then 20-year-old Ruangsak Loychusak—better known as "James", a rising star in Thailand's music scene. He was seated in 11A, by a window near an emergency exit. While others were tragically lost, James survived with relatively minor injuries.

His survival not only shocked the nation but turned him into a symbol of miraculous luck. He later credited his survival to divine protection—and his seat, which had quick access to the exit.

🛫 2025: A Modern Miracle in Ahmedabad

Fast forward to June 12, 2025. Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, had just taken off from Ahmedabad, en route to London. Only minutes into the flight, the aircraft experienced what’s now suspected to be a catastrophic engine and flap system failure, causing it to nosedive into the outskirts of the city.

241 of the 242 passengers and crew died in the fiery crash that devastated nearby homes. The only survivor? Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a 40-year-old passenger traveling on business. His seat? Once again, 11A.

Reports confirm that Vishwash, dazed and badly injured, escaped through a broken emergency door, crawling out before the wreckage was fully engulfed in flames. Local residents found him staggering from the debris, his shirt soaked in blood but still conscious.

He's now recovering in an Ahmedabad hospital, his survival dubbed a “medical and spiritual miracle.”

🧩 Coincidence, Pattern, or Fate?

What makes this tale spine-chilling is not just that these two men survived alone—but that both were seated in the exact same seat: 11A.

Numerologists are quick to point out that the number 11 has long been associated with intuition, insight, and spiritual awakenings. The "A" in 11A places the seat typically beside a window—often near or just ahead of the emergency exits in many aircraft layouts. In survivability studies, proximity to an exit has been shown to increase chances of survival, but never with this kind of mythic regularity.

Still, aviation experts urge caution before jumping to conclusions. While it's tempting to crown seat 11A as some sort of lucky charm, crash survivability is influenced by a web of variables: impact angle, fire, rescue response, seatbelt use, and sheer luck.

🧠 What Does This Mean For Travelers?

Does this mean you should start requesting 11A when booking your next flight? Probably not. But what these stories do tell us is that sometimes, randomness defies all logic. In an industry governed by science, precision, and probabilities, fate seems to have a mysterious way of writing its own rules.

As for James and Vishwash—two men from completely different walks of life, bonded by trauma, survival, and Seat 11A—their stories are now forever linked in the annals of aviation history.

✨ Final Thoughts

It’s rare enough for anyone to walk away from a plane crash. But for two sole survivors, 27 years apart, both sitting in Seat 11A, it becomes the kind of story that feels plucked from fiction.

Maybe it’s coincidence. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s just one of those strange anomalies life throws at us to remind us how fragile—and fascinating—our stories really are.