INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
NEW DELHI: A 37-year-old Air India pilot suffered cardiac arrest at Delhi Airport on Thursday
He received cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and was rushed to a nearby private hospital but could not be saved, officials said
The AI pilot resumed work after Diwali on Thursday
The commander was not operating a flight but was at the airport as part of his training to transition to flying another aircraft type.A
senior DGCA official said: "Captain Himanil Kumar underwent his medical on August 23, 2023, and was declared fit, with his medical validity
until August 30, 2024.Further, there is no fatigue-related issue with regard to flying duties
The pilot was undergoing his Boeing 777 full-type transition ground technical course from October 3, 2023, converting from an Airbus A320
He was on leave from Diwali onwards and returned Thursday for his class, which had a planned B777 aircraft visit, hence was at T3
All his past medical assessments were fine, with no detected underlying medical conditions."Comments were sought from Air India and awaited
till the time of going to press.Pilots of Indian carriers, especially the big ones, have long been complaining of stress and fatigue due to
their "punishing" rostering, which involves back-to-back night shifts, and flights being allocated in a way that they are out of their home
DGCA has clarified that Thursday's unfortunate development was not a "fatigue-related issue with regard to flying duties"
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) recently issued a draft of revised flight duty time limitations (FDTL) that try to rein in
Whether the proposed change is enough remains to be seen.Shocking! 37-year-old AI pilot suffers cardiac arrest at Delhi AirportThis August,
an IndiGo pilot collapsed at a Nagpur airport boarding gate as he was about to board an aircraft to fly it to Pune
Just a day earlier, a SpiceJet captain, currently working for Qatar Airways, had died while flying as a passenger from Delhi to Doha.The
"incident report" for Thursday's "medical emergency case" reads: "At about 11.35 am on November 16, 2023, Air India commander..
age about 37 years suffered cardiac arrest at level 3 Air India office, where CPR was provided by co-staff, and immediately shifted to
Medanta medical centre, where doctor (gave) CPR and first aid but he was in an unconscious condition
Later, he was declared dead."
