In a heart-wrenching aviation mishap, an air ambulance ferrying a burn victim from Ranchi to Delhi crashed in Jharkhand’s Chatra, snuffing out seven lives. Red Bird Aviation’s Beechcraft C90 went down in a remote jungle, exposing risks in critical patient transfers.
Sanjay Kumar, 41, clung to life post-fire injuries at Devkamal Hospital when the flight departed at 7:11 PM. Onboard were skilled aviators Vivek Vikas Bhagat and Subrajdeep Singh, kin Archana Devi and Dhruv Kumar, medic Vikas Kumar Gupta, and caregiver Sachin Kumar Mishra—all perished.
After linking with Kolkata ATC and seeking a detour for bad weather, the signal cut at 7:34 PM, 100 nautical miles out. Alerts blared across aviation networks, zeroing in on Karamatand’s forested expanse under Simaria thana via radar and eyewitness accounts of crashes and fumes.
Rescue squads, fusing local police, district officials, and NDRF-like units, reached Kasariya panchayat amid challenging terrain. The grim discovery ended hopes, with DGCA’s AAIB team en route for forensics. Oversight falls to the Emergency Data Centralized Action Plan.
Authorities withhold crash etiology pending inquiry, but meteorological factors loom large. Chatra’s top cop affirmed details, as grieving families demand transparency. Beyond the loss, this underscores urgent needs for resilient air ambulances in underserved areas, blending technology and vigilance to avert future sorrows.