Thaindian News

Faridabad, May 26 (IANS) A last ditch attempt to save the life of 20-year-old Rahul Raj by transporting him from Patna to a New Delhi hospital in a chartered air ambulance turned fateful for nine others. The single engine aircraft crashed on a house here Wednesday, killing Rahul and six others on board and three people on the ground.

At least 10 people, including two pilots, two doctors, one male nurse and a cousin of the patient, were killed when the small Pilatus PC-12 single-engined turbo-prop aircraft crashed on the roof of house number 1154 in the congested Parvatiya colony in Sector 22 of Faridabad, a crowded Delhi suburb.

Three women, who were sleeping on the roof of the house where the aircraft crashed, were also killed, police said here.

Those on the ill-fated flight included its two pilots, Manjeet Kataria and Harpreet Singh Sekhon, doctors Arshad and Rajesh Jain, male nurse Cyril and Rahul’s cousin Ratnesh, 24.

All the passengers on the aircraft, which eyewitnesses said had caught fire while in air, died instantly as it crashed from a height of 8,000 feet.

Sobhraj, owner of the house, lost his wife, daughter and daughter-in-law in the crash.

“I have lost all the women in my family. This included my wife Vedwati, daughter-in-law Rani and daughter Sarita,” a disconsolate Sobhraj said.

The victims were sleeping on the roof as there was a power cut in the locality.

Rahul, who had a liver failure after suffering from acute jaundice, was referred by doctors at the Jagdish Memorial Hospital in Bihar’s capital Patna for immediate treatment at the Apollo Hospital in New Delhi.

The only son of a Bihar businessman, Rahul, who had slipped into coma Tuesday after his condition worsened, was to be air-lifted to New Delhi on the chartered air ambulance.

The air ambulance was hired at a cost of Rs.4,25,000 and the aircraft flew from New Delhi to bring the patient, who was put on a ventilator.

The initial rescue effort was by local residents, who helped pull out the victims from the aircraft and the house as the police and fire brigade took time in arriving at the spot in the congested locality. The fire engines could not reach close to the crash site.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ordered a probe into the crash.

DGCA officials, who visited the spot Wednesday night, have asked local authorities not to let people anywhere near the crashed aircraft as it still contained some fuel and some of its parts were still burning.