Patna, July 17 :     He had a ringside view of the disaster, sitting by a window of the ill-fated flight CD 7412, and watched as the aircraft slammed through a row of houses in Patna's Chitkora colony. Yet he managed to emerge from it unscathed. 'Yes, miracles do happen,' exulted Bharat Rungta, lying on his bed at the Patna Medical College and Hospital. He is one of the seven survivors of the Alliance crash and the only one to have got away with a few minor bruises. A businessman from Maharashtra, Rungta had come on work to Calcutta and then decided to visit relatives in Patna. 'I was reading a book and generally preparing for the landing when I found the aircraft dipping,' Rungta recalled. 'I looked out of the window and found the aircraft losing height at an unusual pace. First I thought it was the usual landing process but then the aircraft started jerking violently.' Rungta held on tightly to the handles of his seat and began 'to prepare for the worst'. 'I thought this was the end for me and began to pray hard even as the faces of my family members flashed through my mind,' said Rungta. 'Then, as the aircraft dipped to one side and it became clear that it was going to crash into the houses below, I just shut my eyes and prepared to die.' He did not. As the Boeing 737 smashed into the houses and parts of it went up in flames, witnesses were amazed to see Rungta emerge from one of the broken windows of the plane and quietly clamber down its side. 'I have not seen such a fantastic sight in my life,' said rescue worker Brajesh Singh. 'There was shouting and screaming all around, people were crying and suddenly from this ball of fire I saw a man emerge as though nothing had happened to him.' In fact, Rungta joined in the rescue operations, trying to help his fellow passengers out of the burning aircraft. 'What saved my life was the fact that the aircraft banked on one side while it crashed and I was sitting on the side that did not hit the ground,' Rungta said. 'All that I felt was a crush of bodies as other passengers fell on me.' Forty-two-year-old Promod Rajgharia, another survivor, has severe burn injuries on his hands and legs but, nevertheless, considers himself to be as lucky as Rungta. 'The most important thing,' said Rajgharia, who was travelling with his wife and son, 'is that we are all still alive.' While his son Ketan has regained consciousness at the PMCH, his wife Prachi is yet to respond to treatment in an adjoining ward. 'But we hope she will be well soon,' said attending doctor A.A. Hai. Rohit Ranjan, an executive of a liquor company in Calcutta, too watched the aircraft hit some trees, but he had passed out before it crashed. 'I started vomiting as the aircraft started jerking and this is probably why I passed out,' Ranjan said. 'I don't know how I was brought out of the burning aircraft or even how I managed to survive. I am really surprised at my fate.' While another survivor P.M. Bopanna is yet to regain consciousness, Rajiv Singh Rana, the only survivor from Patna, was given up as 'gone' by his family members. Till they traced him to a bed at the PMCH, recovering from chest injuries.