I wish I hadn't given him the chance to fly: pilot's father
New Delhi: The parents of Akash Anantha, the 24-year-old Indian who died in a mid-air crash last week, had to go into debt so that he could fulfil his dream and come to Melbourne to learn how to fly.
Anantha Padmanabha and his wife, Asha, who live in Bangalore, in southern India, are stunned and bewildered at the death of their only son.
When Akash first asked his father if he could go to Melbourne where his cousin Dilip lives, Mr Padmanabha had said no. They could not afford it. Then he relented, borrowing US$13,000. Akash promised to repay him.
“My boy wanted to achieve something with his life. And this is what he achieved,” said Mr Padmanabha. “I gave him the chance to go. I wish I hadn’t. One day he’d asked me for an i-Pod and I said no. I wish I had said no to this too. He was a nice, affectionate boy. I had a lovely time with him.”
Mr Padmanabha said he was “proud” of Akash for crashing his plane away from nearby Cheltenham East Primary School, thereby saving many lives. “He is a hero for me,” he said.
These comments were echoed by the pilot of the other light plane, Steven Pegoraro, who, along with his trainee co-pilot, managed to land his damaged craft. “Akash was really the hero,” he told Channel Nine. “Whatever control he had, he somehow managed to prevent it from being so much worse.” A middle-class family living on the small salary Mr Padmanabha earns as a marketing vice-president of a local firm, the couple has never travelled outside India and is scrambling to get to Australia, including getting a passport for Asha, to bring their son’s body home.
Mr Padmanabha said that when Akash spoke to him a few days before his death, he had sounded so confident that he could only surmise that he had not been instructed properly.
The president of the club, Stuart Rushton, did not want to respond to the comments about the school. But he said everyone at the club was extremely upset. The club would pay to have Akash’s body repatriated. “The club’s dealings with the family have been very sympathetic.”
31/08/08 Amrit Dhillon/Patrick Smithers/WA today, Australia