E-Paper
Father of doctor who died in Jharkhand plane crash breaks down on camera: 'Sold farm to educate him'
Shortly after take off from the Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi, the Beechcraft C90 air ambulance, that was headed to Delhi, lost communication and crashed.
A doctor was among seven people killed in a deadly plane crash in Jharkhand's Chatra district on Monday night. The charter plane was an air ambulance carrying a patient named Sanjay Kumar, 41 and a doctor named Vikas Kumar Gupta was among those accompanying him aboard the flight.
Shortly after take off from the Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi, the Beechcraft C90 air ambulance, that was headed to Delhi, lost communication and RADAR contact with Kolkata, according to a release issued by the Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
All seven people aboard the plane were killed, the doctor among them. His inconsolable father spoke to the media following the incident as he mourned the loss of his son. “My son was a doctor. He told me he was going to Delhi with patients, but later I learned the aircraft had crashed and my son is no more. I sold my farmland to educate him,” Vikas Kumar Gupta's father told news agency PTI.
The CEO of Devkamal Hospital and Research Centre in Ranchi also reacted to the death of the doctor in the plane crash. “Unfortunately, we got the news that a plane had crashed... Dr Vikas Gupta was close to us, unfortunately he also died…,” Dr Anant Sinha told news agency ANI.
The hospital CEO said that Sanjay Kumar, the patient onboard the plane, had been undergoing treatment in the ICU and had suffered 60% burns. “We kept him in the ICU...Some relatives suggested they might want him to be taken abroad for better treatment...They negotiated and arranged for an air ambulance...,” Sinha added.
Others who died in the crash were identified as Captain Vivek Vikas Bhagat, Captain Savrajdeep Singh, Sanjay Kumar, Sachin Kumar Mishra, Archana Devi and Dhuru Kumar.
There hasn't been any official confirmation on the cause of the crash, but some officials have so far suggested that inclement weather and thunderstorm may have contributed to it.
The air ambulance was operated by Delhi-based Redbird Airways with the tail number VT-AJV. It lost contact with the RADAR in Kolkata at approximately 100 NM South-East of Varanasi and crashed shortly after in a forest in Jharkhand's Simaria.
