Nepal air crash: The lunch date with parents that was never to be

Prabhu Sharan Pathak, the pilot captaining the aircraft that crashed into a Nepal cliff on Monday, had promised his parents he would meet them for lunch. But it was a meeting that was never to be.

Pathak was killed along with 14 others, including 13 Indians, when the plane that took off from the tourist town of Pokhara crashed at Jomsom. Only six of the 21 people survived, including an Indian father and his two daughters.

Pathak had called his parents, Harisharan and Tara, who were in Chitwan Sunday and asked them to meet him in Pokhara as he wanted them to participate in a religious ceremony, according to myrepublica.com.

The parents reached Pokhara Monday morning. Pathak had bought tickets for an ultra light flight for his parents so that they could enjoy themselves till he returned from Jomsom. The father went while the mother waited. 

Pathak had wanted them to wait for him at a restaurant after the ultra light flight.

“While leaving, he had asked us to wait for him in this very place. But he is never going to come back,” an anguished Harisharan was quoted as saying.

Pathak´s flight had crashed while his father was in the ultra flight.

“By the time I had got down, my wife had already known about the crash,” said Harisharan.

Pathak had completed his pilot's course from the US 14 years ago.