Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, the pilot on board the Air India flight that crashed and claimed the lives of 241 people, with only one person escaping death, may have made a last-ditch heroic act in an attempt to save thousands of lives.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad, India.
Days following the tragedy, hundreds gathered in Mumbai to honor Captain Sabharwal whose final act before the fatal crash limited causalities on the ground.
Seconds after takeoff, he made a mayday call.
“Mayday… no thrust, losing power, unable to lift,” his final message to air traffic control said.
The plane crashed into a medical college hostel, killing a number of people on the ground, as well as those on board.
However, had it not been for the pilot’s final efforts, the death toll could be significantly higher.
Allegedly, the pilot made a split-second decision to avoid the Civil Hospital Ahmedabad, located just over 5km away from Ahmedabad airport.
The medical facility reportedly has over 3,000 beds, so if the plane had crashed there, the loss of lives could have been far greater than what actually occurred.
“Air India AI-171 crashed just 1.7 km from the Ahmedabad airport. It crashed in a somewhat loosely populated area which has doctor’s hostels and mess for medical students of BJMC and Civil Hospital Ahmedabad,” a person wrote on Reddit.
“Just 400 metres north of the crash site is a civil hospital and south just adjacent to the airport wall is a high-density residential area,” they continued.
The investigation is ongoing. However, the Independent reports that the most probable cause of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner’s sudden descent could be an “extremely rare” loss of power from both engines.
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