November 30, 2003
Flight AI-145 took off from Sahar International Airport* at 4:50 pm after a record 34-hour delay, but the interim period saw the death of a senior passenger and irate passengers taking over the Air-India terminal protesting the thumb-twiddling attitude of India's national airline.
Satish Uppal, a US citizen who died of a cardiac arrest at the Tulip Star Hotel on Friday evening, had booked himself a ticket on the Mumbai-Newark AI-145 flight that was supposed to have taken off at 7:45 am on Friday. Uppal, who along with other passengers was checked into the Tulip Star by Air-India at 1:30 pm on Friday developed chest pains at around 8 pm the same day.
Tulip Star Hotel further stated that around 9:45 pm on Friday, Uppal developed chest pains again while sitting in the hotel lounge. The front desk was alerted by his wife who was supposed to travel with him to New Jersey.
"The death of Mr Uppal had absolutely nothing to do with stress due to the flight delay. He died due to cardiac problems. Our doctors are checking whether he had declared he was a heart patient," was the categoric answer of Jitendra Bhargava, director, public relations at AI.
A doctor at Aarogyanidhi confirmed that Uppal's ECG showed that he had suffered a heart attack and had later undergone angioplasty.
"We advised hospitalisation for him but he unfortunately refused," the doctor said.
But the passengers had a different story to say.
A furious Bijoy Teliwala, a passenger on the flight said, "It was stressful. We were first asked to come at 6 am on Friday, then 2 pm, then 4 yesterday. Some passengers, kids especially, were having trouble with the whole thing and the AI officers did not have a clue."
"The AI staff brought out baby food and potato chips to pacify us while deflecting all queries about the flight update on senior officers, none of whom were available, Thankfully they allowed us to make STD and ISD calls. AI officers did not know what was going on," said George Mundaricar, another passenger.
Bhargava answered the charges saying that the engineers of AI had found a nagging problem in the Boeing 747-400 that could not be fixed.
"There was some problem with the valves which had to be repaired so people were taken off the plane some time before the plane was about to take off," Bhargava said.
The Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport showed its customary care-a-damn-attitude with none of the officers on duty knowing anything about the death of a passenger or the commotion in one of their terminals.
Meanwhile, Uppal's wife along with a male relative who had flown down from Delhi was busy completing formalities with various agencies including the airline and US Consulate to have her husband's body flown out.
Meanwhile Air-India Managing Director Sunil Arora has appointed a two-member committee comprising Commercial Director v k Verma and Director, Medical Services Dr B B Gajre to look into the medical assistance given to Uppal at the hotel and the hospital and the reported refusal of Uppal to be hospitalised there as per the advise of the doctors. The report is to be submitted in a week's time.
*Now called "Chhatrapati Shivaji Int'l Airport"