Grieving daughter says father might still be alive if Air Canada had diverted long-haul flight
Flight AC051 had left Delhi shortly after midnight local time. When Pant’s symptoms started seven hours later, it was over Europe. Pande says she pleaded with the cabin crew to divert the plane and land in order to get her father to a hospital.
Instead, the flight stayed on course for nine more hours, travelling over Ireland, across the Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Canada before touching ground in Montreal. Paramedics were waiting — but Pant died as they worked on him.
“I was very hysterical,” said Pande. “My mind was gone at this point.”
Her father was officially pronounced dead at a Montreal hospital from a “presumed infarction” — dead heart tissue.
Two months later, Pande says the piercing grief has given way to anger.
“He was at the mercy of the pilot and Air Canada people,” she told Go Public. “They were inhumane and callous.”
Add comment