Flight AC051 had left Delhi shortly after midnight local time. When Pant’s symptoms started seven hours later, it was over Europe. Pande says she pleaded with the cabin crew to divert the plane and land in order to get her father to a hospital.
Instead, the flight stayed on course for nine more hours, travelling over Ireland, across the Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Canada before touching ground in Montreal. Paramedics were waiting — but Pant died as they worked on him.
“I was very hysterical,” said Pande. “My mind was gone at this point.”
Her father was officially pronounced dead at a Montreal hospital from a “presumed infarction” — dead heart tissue.
Two months later, Pande says the piercing grief has given way to anger.
“He was at the mercy of the pilot and Air Canada people,” she told Go Public. “They were inhumane and callous.”
Cost to divert was estimated at $900,000 in the article. Decision was based for the air medical contractor in the article.
One improvement I can immediately see, is to put the ground medical team in contact directly with the head flight attendant, rather than having communications filtered by the pilot. Each rebroadcast reduces communication accuracy.