Indian patient dies after mid-air scare on air ambulance to Kolkata

So, you know how sometimes you hear a bit of news and it just makes you go quiet for a second? This is one of those. A sick woman, flying in an air ambulance to get help, never made it to hospital alive.

Her name was Anjana Bhowmik. She was 56 years old, from India, and she was being flown from Agartala to Kolkata for treatment. Somewhere along the way, something went badly wrong with the plane itself.

While the aircraft was climbing through about 12,000 feet on Sunday, 18 October, its door partly opened. That’s a technical fault nobody wants to hear about mid-flight. The pilots had to change course fast and divert to Dhaka in neighbouring Bangladesh.

What actually happened in the air

The aircraft was a Beechcraft King Air C90A, registered as VT-HYA. It’s a small plane often used for medical flights because it’s quick and can be fitted out for patients who need close care in the air.

There were 7 people on board that day: the two pilots, Bhowmik herself, a doctor, a paramedic, and two people travelling with her, likely family. Everyone else on the flight was reported safe.

Once the door issue showed up, the crew diverted to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka instead of carrying on to Kolkata. Bangladesh’s state news agency BSS reported the plane landed safely at around 1:40pm local time.

From there, Bhowmik was taken straight to Kurmitola Multicare Specialised Hospital. Doctors there could not save her. A police officer at the airport, Kamrul Hasan Talukder, told local media she died at the hospital at 4:40pm that same Sunday.

So why isn’t it clear what killed her?

This is the part that’s hard to pin down right now. Nobody has confirmed whether the scare with the door, and whatever happened in those minutes, played a part in her death. It’s also possible her existing medical condition, the one she was already being flown for treatment because of, simply got worse during the flight.

Until there’s an official investigation or statement, we just don’t know. I’d rather say that plainly than guess, because a family is grieving and they deserve facts, not speculation.

A plane without clearance, and a neighbour that helped anyway

Here’s a detail that stood out to me. The aircraft did not actually have the clearance needed for an international landing in Bangladesh. But Bangladeshi authorities let it land anyway, purely on humanitarian grounds, because there was a sick patient on board, according to BSS.

The Indian High Commission in Dhaka then stepped in to sort out the diplomatic paperwork with Bangladeshi officials, so the landing and everything after it could be handled properly.

The plane itself is run by an Indian company, SKB Infracon Pvt Ltd. It stayed parked at Dhaka airport afterwards while officials worked through the clearance issues, according to The Daily Star.

Why this matters if you live in Kuwait

A lot of us here have family back home in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and elsewhere in the region. Air ambulances are the thing people turn to when a loved one needs urgent treatment far from home, often between cities or even countries. Stories like this remind you that even these specially equipped flights carry real risk, and that the people flying in them are often already in a fragile state.

It’s also a small reminder of how countries help each other out in emergencies, clearance paperwork or not, when someone’s life might be on the line. You can find more on regional travel and safety incidents in our international news coverage.

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