{"id":568,"date":"2008-03-03T08:18:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-03T08:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/indianaviationnews.net\/avicareers\/?p=568"},"modified":"2008-03-03T08:18:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-03T08:18:00","slug":"crash-of-varshas-plane-remains-a-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/2008\/03\/crash-of-varshas-plane-remains-a-mystery.html","title":{"rendered":"Crash of Varsha&#039;s plane remains a mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: rgb(153, 0, 0);\">Thiruvananthapuram<\/span>: Seven months after her death in a <a href=\"https:\/\/indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/2007\/07\/2-flight-school-planes-collide-3-dead.html\">mid-air collision<\/a> in Malolos City, Philippines, memories of trainee-pilot Varsha Gopinath, 18, linger afresh in the minds of her parents and friends. Shockingly, what caused the mid-air crash still remains a mystery to them.<br \/>One factor that links trainee pilot <a href=\"https:\/\/indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/2008\/03\/indian-student-and-filipino-instructor.html\">Kaushik G Mohan<\/a>, 26, who died in a plane crash early Saturday morning in Philippines, and Varsha &#8211; other than that both are from Thiruvananthapuram &#8211; is that the plane that rammed her Cessna from behind on July 9, 2007, belonged to Fliteline Aviation School Kaushik later trained at.<br \/>Scores of letters to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wccaviation.com\/\">WCC Aviation Company<\/a>, Philippines, where Varsha trained at, and the Indian Ambassador in Philippines have failed to provide N.Gopinathan Nair, Varsha&#8217;s father, with an answer.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: right;\">___________________________________<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.manilastandardtoday.com\/?page=politics4_mar3_2008\"><span style=\"font-size:180%;\">Philippines ground Cessna planes<\/span><\/a><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;\" >T<\/span><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\">he Air Transportation Office yesterday ordered the<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\">grounding of all Cessna-150 planes in the country<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\">following the recent <\/span><a style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\" href=\"https:\/\/indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/2008\/03\/indian-student-and-filipino-instructor.html\">crash in Bulacan<\/a><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\"> where two persons<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\">were killed. The Cessna 150 is a two-seat airplane<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\">designed for flight training, touring and personal use,<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\">the ATO said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Cessna aircraft in the country are<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\">ordered grounded pending the investigation of the trainer<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\">plane which crashed in Plaridel, Bulacan where two pilots<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\">were killed,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\">said.Most of the 100 Cessna-150 trainer planes in the<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(102, 51, 51);\">country are 40 years old.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(255, 102, 0);\">03\/03\/08 Vito Barcelo<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(255, 102, 0);\">Manila Standard Today, Philippines <\/span><br \/>___________________________________<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;The flying instructor Capt Castello who accompanied Varsha&#8217;s body to Thiruvananthapuram told me that a government investigation was on in Philippines and that a delegation consisting of the owner of WCC Aviation Company would meet me with the investigation report. Nothing has happened so far,&#8221; he said.<br \/>In these seven months, Gopinatha Pillai wrote to Capt Raymond, vice president of WCC but got no reply. He wrote to the Indian ambassador in Manila, but received no response.<br \/>Unlike Kaushik, Varsha had not intended to go to Philippines when she signed up for pilot training with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.air-titan.com\/index.html\">Air Titan Pilot Academy<\/a>, Kochi. Kaushik Mohan, who gave up a career in hotel management for flying, died on Saturday after his plane crashed in a paddy field next to the Plaridel Airfield while he was about to land.<br \/>Last month, another Malayali, K<a href=\"https:\/\/indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/2008\/02\/flight-instructor-from-kerala-missing.html\">iran Panikker of Kollam died<\/a> after his plane crashed in the sea off Philippines.<br \/><span style=\"color: rgb(153, 0, 0);\">03\/03\/08 Newindpress<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thiruvananthapuram: Seven months after her death in a mid-air collision in Malolos City, Philippines, memories of trainee-pilot Varsha Gopinath, 18,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indianaviationnews.net\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}