A tragic aviation accident took place Monday evening in Jharkhand’s Chatra district with a massive crash that caused seven fatalities, the majority being men and women who were in uniform. The Beechcraft C90, operated by Delhi-based Redbird Airways, had started flying from Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi at 7:11 p.m., to New Delhi for advanced medical treatment.
Alas, the flight was halted in a thick forest, around the village of Simaria and its mission, which had been a prayer to escape mortality, was cut short. The plane lost radar link and radar contact with Kolkata Air Traffic Control at around 7:34 PM, approximately 23 minutes after takeoff.
Preliminary reports by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) indicated that the flight crew had asked for a change in course because of inclement weather soon before contact was cut off. And local actors, including the Deputy Commissioner of Chatra, later confirmed that all seven passengers and pilots two pilots and five medical staff and passengers were killed.
The victims have been identified to be pilot-in-command Captain Vivek Vikas Bhagat, co-pilot Captain Savrajdeep Singh, the patient, 41-year-old Sanjay Kumar; who was being transferred for severe burn injuries, Dr. Vikas Kumar Gupta, paramedic Sachin Kumar Mishra and attendants Archana Devi and Dhuru Kumar. Rescue teams had difficulty finding a thorough route to recover the remains amid the difficult terrain of the remote forest.
As the country laments the catastrophic death, an investigation is under way. A team from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has received an order to recover the aircraft's flight data recorder and investigate the circumstances of the accident, officials said. While weather is suspected potentially responsible and officials have suggested that certain factors are to blame, a thorough investigation will determine the final cause of this fatal crash.
