A 51-year-old pilot died on board a Qatar Airways flight from Delhi to Doha last week (Aug 16). The pilot was off duty at the time and was previously flying SpiceJet.
The flight, QR579 was about 30 minutes away from landing when it was diverted to Dubai which delayed its arrival in Doha. The pilot had fallen ill while traveling as a passenger and was later declared dead. Despite an all out effort by the flight crew and medical personnel he could not be saved.
“He was very fit and his untimely demise has come as a big shock for everyone who knew him,” said one of his colleagues.
Qatar Airways has not yet issued any comment on the death.
Strangely the pilot’s death announcement came one day after another pilot died while captaining a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This occurred just two hours after leaving Miami when the flight had to be diverted to Panama.
The pilot on the Qatar Airways flight had collapsed in the bathroom of a flight from Miami to Chile, due to a cardiac arrest. This forced the plant, flight LA505 to make an emergency landing in Panama.
On Aug 17, a 40-year-old IndiGo pilot died at the boarding gate in Nagpur, India also due to a “sudden cardiac arrest”. This strange coincidence means there were three pilot deaths in three days.
The IndiGo pilot was supposed to fly the plane from Nagpur to Pune. According to sources the pilot had operated on two sectors, from Trivandrum to Nagpur via Pune between 3am and 7am. He had 27 hours of rest and was scheduled to fly four sectors. He collapsed when he reported for his first departure of the day.
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