Two Different People Survived Plane Crashes by Sitting in 11A, but Does That Matter?

There are few things more terrifying than the idea of an airplane crashing. There's a reason the Final Destination built an entire franchise around the notion. Following the devastating Air India crash that killed 241 passengers as well as several people on the ground, many are reckoning with the aftermath of the disaster.

Among the things that people have been focused on in the aftermath of the disaster is Vishwashkumar Ramesh, the flight's sole survivor, who was sitting in seat 11A. It turns out, though, that Vishwashkumar was not the only sole survivor of a plane crash to sit in that seat, though, which has led some to wonder whether there's something extra safe about it. Here's what we know.

Vishwashkumar was seated in 11A and managed to slide out the emergency exit after the plane crashed into a hostel, burning most of the bodies beyond recognition. The strange thing, though, is that James Ruangsak Loychusak, who was one of the survivors of a deadly Thai Airways crash in 1998, was sitting in the same seat. "Survivor of a plane crash in India. He sat in the same seat as me. 11A," he wrote on Facebook.

That plane crash during its third approach at Surat Thani Airport amid heavy rain, but James was not the sole survivor. In fact, 45 people survived that crash. James said that he no longer has his boarding pass from the flight, and so it's impossible to confirm exactly where he was sitting. Still, James claims that he was able to figure it out based on his own memory and charts of the type of plane he was on.

After discovering that two different people had survived deadly plane crashes by sitting in seat 11A, the story started to go viral online, with some passengers suggesting that they would only be booking that seat on all future flights.

The CBC spoke with aviation experts, though, who said that there's no reason to believe that that seat is the safest place to be on any particular flight.

While it might be good to be near an emergency exit of some kind, we have no reason to believe that 11A is uniquely safe. All crashes are different, and depending on what caused your crash and which area of the plane is most affected, any number of different seats could be the safest. What's more, seat 11A is located in different spots on different aircrafts meaning that you aren't even guaranteed anything in particular if you sit there.

So, while it might be comforting to think that a particular seat will keep you safe, that's not actually the reality. Plane crashes are, thankfully, pretty rare events, but staying safe in the middle of one is a matter of luck as much as anything else. Emergency exits help, though, although even they are far from a guarantee that you'll survive a plane crash.