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

Chatra: A debt-ridden family had to hire an air ambulance for Rs 8 lakh after a medical emergency. A young pilot is days away from going on vacation to a close friend’s wedding. An anesthetist who stepped in for a colleague at the last minute.These are some of the stories buried in the wreckage of the Delhi-bound Beechcraft C90 charter that crashed into a forest in Jharkhand’s Chatra on Monday evening, killing all seven on board. The plane took off from Ranchi less than 30 minutes earlier, taking hotelier Sanjay Kumar to Delhi’s Ganga Ram Hospital for treatment of burns caused by an LPG cylinder explosion on February 16. Among the seven killed in the accident were Sanjay’s wife Archana Devi and the couple’s teenage nephew Dhruv Kumar. The family took loans and borrowed money from relatives to finance Sanjay’s treatment.

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The family took loans and borrowed money from relatives to treat Sanjay after an accident at his roadside hotel, which he jointly ran with his brother. Sanjay’s father was killed by Maoists in 2004.Sanjay and Archana’s two teenage sons – Shivam (13) and Shubham (17) – have barely uttered a word since the latest tragedy for their family. Their great-grandfather Baleshwar Sahu breaks down whenever anyone 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 would have thought they were paying for a ride to death rather than life,” said one relative.The family of Dr Vikas Kumar Gupta, a 34-year-old anesthetist posted at Ranchi Sadar Hospital, said he was not supposed to be on that flight until the request came at 5pm. “He didn’t think twice. For him, the patient always came first,” says a relative.Vikas, a resident of Aurangabad in Bihar, was part of the evacuation of multiple planes. His father Bajrangi Prasad Gupta said, “I spoke to him a few minutes before the flight took off.Dev Sahay Bhagat, an executive engineer of the rural works department in Chatra, was looting in his home village when he heard about the accident. One of the two pilots was his son Vivek Vikas Bhagat, 28. Vivek, who had logged 1,700-odd flying hours, applied for leave from February 27 and was “excited” about a friend’s upcoming wedding, his family said.The plane’s co-pilot, Savrajdeep Singh, hailed from Amritsar and had more than 300 flying hours to his name. A five-member technical team from aviation regulator DGCA and three officials from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) arrived in Jharkhand on Tuesday to investigate the accident near Simaria in Chatra district. The district administration has sealed the place until the team arrives. The state government has also ordered an inquiry into the incident.In Kolkata, ATC officials said the pilots did not send any distress calls before the plane went off radar at 7.34 pm on Monday. Minutes before the crash, the captain sought permission “for a diversion due to inclement weather,” they said.