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In the commercial aviation industry, there are seats that passengers avoid for comfort, location, or simply out of superstition.
One of them is seat 11A, which, although often undesirable, recently became the focus of global attention for an unexpected reason: it was the seat occupied by the sole survivor of the tragic Air India flight AI171, which crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad to London.
This seat has been dubbed by many travelers as one of the least attractive on any aircraft, partly due to the reputation it carries with it from airlines like Ryanair, where number 11A promises a window… that doesn’t actually exist.
Instead, there is a blank panel or a minimal opening, which prevents views of the outside, shattering the expectations of those who choose a window seat.
According to specialized websites such as Flightradar24, this peculiarity is not an error, but rather a consequence of the structural design of aircraft like the Boeing 737-800, where the ventilation system passes right through that section of the fuselage.
This makes it necessary to remove the usual window. The lack of a view, combined with a location that sometimes limits space, makes it one of the least popular among passengers.
However, fate had it otherwise for flight AI171, operated by a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, a different model than the 737-800 but also with certain similarities in configuration.
The plane took off just after 1:30 p.m. from Ahmedabad Airport, in western India, and a few minutes later suffered a malfunction that caused it to crash in a residential area. The magnitude of the accident was devastating.
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