Mumbai plane crash
Hours before the 12-seater aircraft crashed in thickly populated suburb of Ghatkopar in Mumbai on Thursday, maintenance engineer Surabhi Gupta - one of the five killed in the incident- told her Haryana-based father that she was going to fly in a "sick aircraft".
She spoke to her father on phone on Thursday morning, and died in the crash hours later.
"It was yesterday morning that we spoke over phone. We had a routine conversation before she told me that the aircraft she was going to fly in later in the day was sick. She said the aircraft was in a bad condition..," Surabhi's father S P Gupta told reporters at his residence in Sonepat today.
The grieving father wondered who gave the permission to fly a "sick aircraft".
"How was permission given to fly a sick aircraft and who gave this permission," he asked.
At the same time, Gupta said that he was confident that a high-level probe would be conducted by authorities concerned into the incident and people responsible will be held accountable.
He said Surabhi got married only last year and her husband too was a pilot.
He recalled that Surabhi was often referred to as astronaut Kalpana Chawla by local residents in their home town in Uttar Pradesh.
"Recently, she was honoured by the Maharashtra government. She was a brave young woman, who was fond of heights," he said.
The 12-seater aircraft, which had taken off from the Juhu airport less than an hour before the incident, crashed into an under construction building in Ghatkopar in Mumbai, killing both pilots and two aircraft engineers on board, along with a pedestrian on the ground.
(With agency inputs)
