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With road travel not possible for Sanjay Shaw, who had suffered 65% burns, the family had borrowed Rs 8 lakh from friends, kin for an air ambulance to transport him to Delhi
The air ambulance that crashed in Kasariya Panchayat, Simariya block of Chatra district, in Jharkhand. (Image: ANI)
The family of Sanjay Kumar Shaw, 41, the patient who was being transported to Delhi for advanced treatment, had taken a loan of around Rs 8 lakh to hire the air ambulance that crashed in Jharkhand’s Chatra district shortly after taking off from Ranchi.
All seven on-board — Shaw, his wife Archana Devi, relative Dhruv Kumar, doctor Vikas Kumar Gupta, nurse Sachin Kumar Mishra, and pilots Captain Vivek Vikas Bhagat and Captain Savrajdeep Singh – died in the mishap.
Shaw suffered 65% burns last Monday after an electric short circuit at his restaurant in Chandwa triggered a fire. As his condition deteriorated, the family decided to shift him to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi for advanced care.
#WATCH | Chatra, Jharkhand | Ramesh Kumar, Second in Command of SSB, says, “We received information that a plane had crashed…This area is quite inland…There’s no road at all for two kilometres…When we arrived here at night, we saw that no one was found alive…The bodies… https://t.co/PyebaTG3kc pic.twitter.com/WC6jGbsQMO— ANI (@ANI) February 24, 2026
As a journey by road was not possible for Shaw, the family had borrowed around Rs 8 lakh from friends and relatives for an air ambulance.
The Beechcraft C90 air ambulance, operated by Redbird Airways Pvt Ltd, took off from Ranchi at 7.11 pm. It lost contact with Air Traffic Control about 20 minutes later. The plane crashed in a forest area in Chatra district, apparently due to poor weather conditions.
“We had just reached home when we learnt about the crash from TV news. Everything ended in a moment,” his brother, Vijay, told NDTV. Ajay, Shaw’s brother, told India Today how the family even thought of selling their property and land for the treatment of Sanjay.
The crash has left Shaw’s two children orphans. “Had we given proper treatment to my brother-in-law Sanjay in Ranchi, precious lives could have been saved. I lost both Sanjay and my sister Archana Devi,” a relative told news agency PTI.
Anant Sinha, CEO of Devkamal Hospital in Ranchi, where Sanjay was being treated, told PTI that the air ambulance was arranged by one of their patients.
Bajrangi Prasad, father of Dr Vikas Kumar Gupta, said he sold all his land to make his son a doctor. “He has a seven-year-old son… He was meritorious and completed his MBBS from Odisha’s Cuttack,” said Prasad.
#WATCH | Delhi | Visuals from outside the Redbird Airways Pvt. Ltd. OfficeA Redbird Airways Pvt Ltd Beechcraft C90 aircraft VT-AJV with seven people (including 2 crew members) on board, crashed in Kasariya Panchayat, Simariya block of Chatra district, in Jharkhand. All seven… pic.twitter.com/Ykuk5Kgh4E
— ANI (@ANI) February 24, 2026
A team from India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has been dispatched to investigate the cause, the regulator said. Most air crashes are due to a combination of factors and can take at least a year to investigate, according to industry experts.
Last month, a Learjet 45 charter aircraft crashed killing all five people on board, including the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar, and two members of his staff.
With Agency Inputs
February 24, 2026, 14:38 IST
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