Medanta Hospital’s Air Ambulance crash-lands near Bangkok
March 7, 2017
The Air Ambulance of Gurgaon’s Medanta Hospital that flew from New Delhi to Bangkok at 8.42 am on Sunday crash-landed at Nakhon Pathom airport, about 730km from Bangkok, late Sunday afternoon. The aircraft was Pilatus PC 12 (VT-AVG) and belonged to Delhi-based charter company, Air Charter Services. The hospital had chartered the plane to pick up a patient from Bangkok.
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted on Monday; the plane carrying five members crew caught fire and crash-landed near Bangkok. Swaraj also informed that the pilot of the Air Ambulance, Arunaksha Nandy, died in the incident and two doctors identified as Dr.Shailendra and Dr.Komal were severely injured. The remaining two people; a nurse and another pilot encountered minor injuries. The injured doctors are from the department of emergency and anaesthesia.
The injured were airlifted to Bangkok hospital by army helicopters. A separate team of doctors from Medanta left for Thailand later on Sunday to carry out proper treatment for the injured.
After taking off from Delhi, the plane stopped at Kolkata for refueling. Then it was en route to Bangkok and caught fire before crash-landing at Nakhon Pathom airport.
The Pilatus PC-12 that crash-landed was manufactured in 2008. It is a single-engine turboprop passenger and cargo aircraft manufactured by Pilatus Aircraft of Switzerland. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee of Thailand has classified the crash-landing as an accident and will be conducting further investigation.
