A stomachache saved this pilot's life

A stomachache saved this pilot's life
Sreelatha Menon

New Delhi, July 30: Captain Amarjeet Singh has been caught in a strange situation where he can neither grieve nor rejoice. He was supposed to be on the chartered plane on a mission to evacuate the injured Belgian tourist from the hills of Kullu yesterday. Caught in bad weather, the plane carrying a doctor, two helpers and two crew members crashed in the Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh.

J.S. Ghuman (50), the co-pilot of the ill-fated plane, had called up Captain Singh at around 10am yesterday and informed him about the rescue mission.

``I was preparing to leave but I had severe pain in the stomach and I told him so. Later, when he called again at 12 I told him that I was not in a condition to fly. I asked him to get someone else and he got Selvam, another pilot with the Ariel Services,'' recounted Singh.

The pilot, who lives in Rajouri Garden with his wife and two children, has been receiving calls from relatives and friends unable to believe that he had a miraculous escape from death. ``I still can't believe it,'' his cousin Sunny Singh, a DJ by profession, said.

Sitting in his family's Hero Honda showroom, the pilot has also been answering phone calls of relatives of the victims of the crash today. All had been given his number as he was originally to be the pilot of the aircraft.

The 42-year-old pilot said that the plane took off at 12.50pm and lost contact with the air traffic control tower after 1.38pm. The panic buttons were pressed a half an hour after they failed to raise the pilots.

While Ghuman, a resident of Noida, is being cremated in Chandigarh and his family has rushed there, the body of 23-year-old Selvam is to be sent to Tamil Nadu where his parents live.

He used to stay alone near INA market, Singh said.

According to Singh, evacuation missions such as this one, are few and far between, ``probably once a month''. Otherwise he flies new aircraft for delivery to various buyers around four to five times in a month.