Senior citizen dies on board AI flight from NY

A senior citizen died on board Air India’s New York-Mumbai non-stop flight on May 3. The passenger was a heart patient.

Venkat Subba Rao, 62, and his wife B Subba Rao, 54, boarded AI 140 from New York at 9.10pm on Sunday night. Rao, a retired State Bank of India employee from Chennai, was returning after visiting his son in New Jersey and relatives in California.

“Around midnight, my husband complained of breathlessness and I requested the crew to help us,” B Subba Rao said in her statement to the Sahar police. “A doctor on board attended to him but declared him dead at 1.30am. He was a heart patient.” she said.

The flight landed at the Mumbai airport on Monday night. “We sent the body for post-mortem. The report revleaed that he had died of a heart attack. The body has been handed over to his wife,” said Dilip Patil, senior inspector of Sahar police station.

AI officials said such deaths can be prevented if passengers declare their medical status before taking a flight, especially before a long journey.

“We have made it mandatory for passengers to declare their medical status. But many passengers get a fake fitness certificate from doctors and fly,” an AI officer, who did not want to be named, said.

On April 21, a 12-day-old baby Charu Rawat died on board a Kingfisher flight. She had a hole in her heart and was being taken to Bangalore by her parents for treatment when the death happened. Before boarding the flight, the baby’s parents had shown a medical certificate to the airport doctor stating she was fit to fly.