Air crashes have thrown up sole survivors but none survived a crash as deadly as the one from which British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh walked out alive on Thursday. Here are some of the notable sole survivors of the deadliest air crashes

Vesna Vulović

(Flight JU367, 1972)

The 22-year-old Yugoslav flight attendant survived the highest ever fall without a parachute. She hurtled 10.16km down after a Jugoslovenski Aerotransport McDonnell Douglas DC-9- 32 exploded over the East Germany-Czechoslovakia border. Czechoslovak authorities blamed the crash on a briefcase bomb that killed all the 27 other occupants.

Vulović may have survived because she got trapped in the fuselage by a food trolley while the others were blown off the plane when the cabin depressurised. Her low BP may have prevented her heart from bursting on impact.

She spent days in a coma, paralysed and with multiple fractures, but continued to work after she recovered. She became a pro-democracy activist in Serbia in the 1990s.

Larisa Savitskaya

(Flight SU811, 1981)

The 20-year-old Russian survived a mid-air collision between an Aeroflot Antonov An-24RV and a Soviet air force Tupolev Tu16K bomber over Zavitinsk in Russia. The pilots were blamed for the crash.

Savitskaya survived an eight-minute fall of 5.22km as the piece of wreckage she was in glided into a swamp. She was found in a taiga forest after three days. She suffered fractures, a concussion and spinal injuries but recovered fully. She spoke about the incident publicly only in 2001, claiming the Soviet security services had warned her against doing so. Her husband died in the crash.

Cecelia Cichan

(Flight NW255, 1987)

Before Ramesh, Cichan held the distinction of being the sole survivor of the deadliest air crash in which no one else survived. The then four-year-old girl recovered from severe injuries but lost her parents and brother in the crash.

The Northwest Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD-82 aircraft, bound for Michigan, went down immediately after takeoff from Detroit, killing 156 people. The crash was attributed to pilot error and an improper flaps and slats configuration. In a documentary on her in 2013, Cichan said she thought of the crash every day and her body still carried the scars.

Youcef Djillali

(Flight AH6289, 2003)

The Air Algérie Boeing 737- 2T4, travelling from Tamanrasset to Ghardaia in Algeria, crashed near the Trans-Sahara Highway soon after takeoff. Djillali, a 28-year-old soldier, was ejected from the plane on impact as he was not wearing a seatbelt. He was found in a coma with multiple injuries, and regained consciousness a day later. The crash was attributed to crew error following an engine failure.

Bahia Bakari

(Flight IY626, 2009)

The Yemenia Airlines Airbus A310-324 crashed over the Indian Ocean at night, because of pilot error, while flying from Sanaa in Yemen to Moroni in Comoros. Thirteen hours later, the 12-year-old French girl was found floating in the ocean without a life jacket but clinging to a piece of wreckage. The crash killed 152 people including her mother.

Bakari’s memoir was published in 2010. She reportedly turned down an offer from Steven Spielberg to turn it into a film, saying “it would be too terrifying”.