Captain DV Sathe along with his co-pilot and 16 passengers lost their lives when the Air India Express Boeing 737 from Dubai to Kozhikode (Calicut) overshot the runway at Karipur airport on Friday.
New Delhi, August 8:
Captain Dipak Vasant Sathe, pilot of the Air India Express flight (AXB1344, B737) died when the aircraft skidded off the runway at Kozhikode International Airport in Kerala on Friday night. As many as 16 people, including Captain Sathe and the co-pilot, have been confirmed dead by authorities.
Unconfirmed reports are now coming in suggesting that Captain Sathe turned off the engine right before the crash, saving the lives of his passengers and the cabin crew. Preliminary inputs indicate that the fuselage broke into two after the aircraft overshot the runway during its second attempt to land at the Karipur ‘tabletop’ airport.
There were a total of 190 passengers onboard, including 174 adults and 10 infants apart from four cabin crew members and two pilots. As per Air India Express, the flight was returning to Karipur airport from Dubai as part of the ‘Vande Bharat’ repatriation initiative.
A former test pilot with the Indian Air Force (IAF), Captain DV Sathe was an experienced aerial operator. He had flown the Airbus 310 for Air India before moving to Air India Express to fly a Boeing 737. Captain Sathe was also the recipient of a Sword of Honour at the Air Force Academy (AFA).
An alumnus of the National Defence Academy (NDA) in Pune, Captain Sathe stood first in the 58th course of Pune NDA from Juliet Squadron. He passed out from AFA with the ‘Sword of Honour’ in 1981. Apart from being an accomplished fighter pilot and a HAL test pilot, he was also an exceptional squash player.
His body along with that of his co-pilot are being kept at the MIMS hospital in Kozhikode.
