Indian-origin woman killed, daughter hurt in small plane crash in US
Darpan News Desk IANS, 07 Mar, 2023 05:28 PM
New York, March 7 (IANS) An Indian-origin woman has died in a small plane crash in the New York area while her daughter and the pilot were injured when they were on a "demonstration flight" to explore flying lessons, according to media reports.
Roma Gupta, 63, was killed on Sunday on Long Island when the plane, a four-seater single-engine Piper Cherokee, went down in flames as it was returning to the Republic Airport on Long Island from where it had also taken off.
Her daughter Reeva Gupta, 33, and the pilot are in hospital with severe burns, according to NBC New York TV channel.
"It was a demonstration flight, an introductory flight to see if people are interested" in flying lessons, Oleh Dekajlo, the lawyer for Danny Waizman Flight School, told the channel.
The crash in a residential area of Lindenhurst that missed houses and crashed in a field was captured on home surveillance cameras.
A witness told CBS New York TV, "The pilot did a great job, in my opinion, trying to avoid any houses, people and traffic."
Reeva Gupta is a neurosurgery physician's assistant with the Mount Sinai Hospital System, according to an appeal set up by co-workers on Gofundme.
"To help fulfil a long-standing wish of theirs, they booked a flight lesson", according to the appeal which had collected nearly $70,000 by Tuesday evening to help Reeva Gupta and her family".
It said that she is "fighting for her life" with third-degree burns all over her body.
WABC TV reported that the 23-year-old pilot is a certified flight instructor who issued a "May Day" call - the aviation distress signal - that there was smoke in the plane before it went down.
According to court documents and evidence presented at the trial on Wednesday, Atlanta-based Minal Patel, 44, owned LabSolutions LLC -- a lab enrolled with Medicare that performed sophisticated genetic tests.
While 11 out of her 12 white colleagues were reappointed after their contracts ended, Sharma, hired as a senior lecturer in 2016, was not given her job back. The tribunal ruled that Sharma was the victim of subconscious discrimination and described the selection process as being "tainted by race discrimination"
Justice Sally Fitzgerald set a trial date down for five weeks in May 2024. Of the three, a 34-year-old man has been charged with Patel's murder, as well as aggravated robbery. The other two -- Henry Fred and Shane Henry Tane -- have been accused of robbery.
The FWO investigated after receiving a request for assistance from the Indian worker and issued compliance notice to Bhangu Pty Ltd. in September 2021. Thereafter, it secured a $30,000 penalty in court against the operator of the vehicle repair and maintenance business in Brisbane.
During raids at the couple's North London home twice in 2020, police found messages referring to 100 kg packages, cocaine parcels, evidence of drug exchanges, and a conversation about a possible gun deal. Cops also found drugs in a Louis Vuitton box under the couple's bed, as well as 27,000 pounds in cash at his home, apart from cannabis cultivation at the property.
She was a faculty member at Baylor University and worked primarily at Harris Health clinics. Vettical was born in Kuwait in 1970, and received her medical degree from the University of Texas. She specialised in Internal Medicine.
