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.
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A prominent New York senator is joining the ranks of American lawmakers who want the White House to end vaccination rules at the Canada-U.S. land border. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Brian Higgins, Democrats both, have written to urge President Joe Biden to "reciprocate" Canada's new COVID-19 border policy.
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The lawsuit has been filed against Colorado-based Global Medical Response (GMR), and companies under it, American Medical Response (AMR) and its subsidiaries, for turning away a qualified paramedic in midst of a global pandemic. In November 2020, AMR dismissed Singh after he requested and was denied personal protective equipment (PPE) that would accommodate his turban and beard.
