India has had several major plane crashes in recent decades. In 1996, a Saudi Arabian airlines Boeing 747 taking off from Delhi collided in midair with an arriving Kazakhstan Airline flight, killing all 349 people on both planes.

Vishwashkumar, who was sitting in seat 11a on the Air India flight, is receiving treatment at Ahmedabad’s Civil Hospital, where he has been visited by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who also attended the bedside of locals who were not onboard the plane but were struck and injured by the crash.