Jharkhand air ambulance crash: Family borrowed Rs 8 lakh for ill-fated medical flight | India News

CHATRA: A family sinking in debt after a medical emergency required them to hire an air ambulance for Rs 8 lakh. A young pilot days away from going on leave for a close friend’s wedding. An anaesthetist who stepped in for a colleague at the last moment.These are some of the stories that lie buried in the debris of the Delhi-bound Beechcraft C90 charter that crashed into a forest in Jharkhand’s Chatra on Monday evening, killing all seven people on board. The aircraft had taken off from Ranchi less than 30 minutes earlier, ferrying hotel owner Sanjay Kumar to Delhi’s Ganga Ram Hospital for treatment of burns suffered in an LPG cylinder explosion on Feb 16. Among the seven crash victims were Sanjay’s wife Archana Devi and the couple’s teenage nephew Dhruv Kumar. The family had taken loans and borrowed from relatives to fund Sanjay’s treatment.

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The family had taken loans and borrowed from relatives to fund Sanjay’s treatment after the accident at his roadside hotel, which he jointly ran with his brother. In 2004, Maoists killed Sanjay’s father.Sanjay and Archana’s two teenage sons — Shivam (13) and Shubham (17) — have barely uttered a word since the latest tragedy to befall their family. Their greatgrandfather, Baleshwar Sahu, breaks down every time someone talks about Sanjay.A relative said the family paid Rs 6 lakh in advance for the air ambulance flight and borrowed Rs 2 lakh from someone in Latehar.“Who could have imagined they were paying for a journey to death rather than life,” a relative said.The family of 34-year-old anaesthetist Dr Vikas Kumar Gupta, posted at Ranchi Sadar hospital, said he wasn’t supposed to be on that flight until a request came in at 5pm. “He didn’t think twice. For him, the patient always came first,” a relative said.Vikas, a native of Bihar’s Aurangabad, had been part of multiple air evacuations. “I spoke to him minutes before the aircraft took off. Main barbad ho gaya (I am finished),” his father Bajrangi Prasad Gupta said.Dev Sahay Bhagat, an executive engineer with the rural works department in Chatra, was in his native village of Luti when he received news of the crash. One of the two pilots was his son Vivek Vikas Bhagat, 28. Vivek, who had logged 1,700-odd flying hours, had applied for leave from Feb 27 and was “excited” about a friend’s upcoming wedding, his family said.The co-pilot of the aircraft, Savrajdeep Singh, was a resident of Amritsar with over 300 flying hours to his name. A five-member technical team from aviation regulator DGCA and three officials of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) arrived in Jharkhand on Tuesday to investigate the crash near Simaria in Chatra district. The district administration sealed the site till the team’s arrival. The state govt has also ordered its own probe into the incident.In Kolkata, ATC officials said the pilots didn’t send out any distress call before the aircraft went off the radar at 7.34pm Monday. Minutes before the crash, the captain sought permission for “a deviation due to inclement weather”, they said.