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Jharkhand air ambulance crash: Family pooled ₹8 lakh to fly burn victim to Delhi
The Jharkhand crash was the third such civilian aviation incident since June, when an Air India Boeing Dreamliner crashed in Ahmedabad
When Sanjay Kumar, 41, suffered 63% burn injuries, his desperate family pooled all the money they had to raise ₹8 lakh for an air ambulance to fly him from Ranchi to New Delhi. The race against time to save his life ended minutes after the Beechcraft King Air C90 air ambulance carrying him crashed in the forests of Chatra. The crash killed Kumar, his wife, Archana Devi, relative Dhuru Kumar, physician Vikas Kumar Gupta, paramedic Sachin Kumar Mishra, and captains Vivek Vikas Bhagat and Savrajdeep Singh.
“Not just one, many families have been ruined,” said a relative of Kumar at Chatra Sadar Hospital morgue. “If proper treatment had been available in Ranchi, we would not have had to take him to Delhi.”
Bajrangi Prasad, the father of Gupta, who was assigned to keep Kumar stable during the flight, recounted the sacrifices he made for his son’s education. “He has a seven-year-old son... I sold my farmland to educate him,” Prasad said. “He told me he was going to Delhi with a patient, but soon I learned the aircraft had crashed and my son is no more.”
The residents of nearby villages were the first to reach the crash site after hearing a loud sound and seeing a flash of light. They trekked 4 km through the forest to locate the crashed aircraft. Rescuers retrieved the bodies overnight and brought them to the Chatra Sadar Hospital.
The crash was the latest safety crisis to hit India’s aviation sector. Delhi-based Redbird Airways operated the Beechcraft C90 aircraft, which took off from Ranchi at 7:11pm. Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said the aircraft established contact with Kolkata air traffic control at 7:34pm, before losing communication, radar contact, and going down.
Redbird Airways received its permit to serve non-scheduled flights in 2019, according to its website. According to the DGCA website, the fleet had six planes, including the one that crashed.
The crash intensified the scrutiny of chartered jet operators and the regulatory framework governing them. It came days after deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and four others were killed in the crash involving a Learjet 45 aircraft in Maharashtra’s Baramati on January 28. The crash sparked calls for an independent probe.
The DGCA had announced special audits of all non-scheduled operators, but the reports have not been released.
The Jharkhand crash was the third such civilian aviation incident since June last year, when an Air India Boeing Dreamliner crashed shortly after take off from the Ahmedabad airport. The final report on the crash is yet to be released.
Ranchi airport director Vinod Kumar said inclement weather could be a reason behind the Jharkhand crash, but the actual cause will be determined after an investigation. Investigators were probing whether severe weather or a technical snag caused the crash.
