Aviation Expert Analyzes Air India Solo Survivor's Luck, Safety of Seating in Crashes

Captain Ross "Rusty" Aimer -- a retired United Airlines pilot and the CEO of Aero Consulting Experts -- dissects potential reasons why the solo Air India survivor walked away from the tragic crash site where hundreds died ... and he says it may have everything to do with where the man was sitting.

As you know, last week, an Air India flight tragically crashed moments after taking off, killing more than 200 passengers on board -- but, one flier was seen walking away from the explosion, practically untouched.

Capt. Rusty tells us there's not necessarily a "safest" seat a person can sit in on a plane, but if you can get as close as possible to any emergency exit door, your chances of walking off a plane if it goes down definitely increase.

The expert adds that being close to an emergency exit -- like Viswash Kumar Ramesh's seat 11A was on this plane -- allows the passenger to be the first off the plane in the worst scenarios, which can mean life or death within a matter of seconds.

He points out in Ramesh's case, you can see in videos of the explosion there was a ton of fuel, but Ramesh was apparently saved from the inferno by sitting forward of fuel tanks located by the wings.

However, the retired pilot wants to emphasize there’s no such thing as a guaranteed safe seat on any type of aircraft. He jokes pilots are usually the first to arrive at a crash site ... but in every plane crash instance, each seat's level of safety varies depending on the nature of the incident.