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An 83-year-old father died on a long-haul Air Canada flight from India to Toronto — but he might still be alive if the crew had listened to his family's desperate pleas and diverted the plane when he began having health problems, his grieving daughter told Insider.
Pande told Insider she was over the moon about the trip; her father, Harish Pant, had been granted permanent residency in Canada after a long and arduous application process, she said.
Pande told Insider that she was traveling with her father and her mother-in-law from New Delhi to Toronto, with a layover in Montreal, in September.
But things took a turn for the worse when, seven hours into the journey, Harish Pant's health began deteriorating, Pande said.
He started having chest pain, followed by a loss of bowel control, nausea, and back pains, Pande told Insider.
Pande said that her mother-in-law, who is a heart patient, said Pant was showing clear signs of a heart attack.
Pande told Insider that she pleaded with the cabin crew to divert the plane and land it so that her father could get to a hospital.
But the crew refused to after consulting with the pilot, she said, adding that the flight continued for another nine hours as her father's condition got worse.
Pande said the crew didn't give her a chance to speak with the pilot.
"I should have banged on the cockpit," Pande told CBC, which first reported what happened to Pande's family.
But in a statement emailed to Insider, an Air Canada spokesperson said the airline "categorically rejects any assertions that it was responsible for the customer's death."
The airline said the cabin crew followed the correct procedures for dealing with onboard emergencies. A spokesperson told CBC that the staff's recollection of the events differed from that of the family's "in several important respects."
Air Canada told Insider it was in constant contact with a third-party medical provider used by airlines to formulate a care plan, who did not recommend a diversion.
The airline said Pant and his daughter were moved to business-class seats so that he could lay flat.
Pande told Insider that the cabin crew unsuccessfully tried to get assistance from a passenger with medical training, and that crew members denied her requests for electrolytes for her father, as well as her repeated pleas for the plane to land.
She also alleged that the crew failed to monitor her father's blood pressure and didn't give him medication, even though the crew members said they had first-aid training.
Eventually, the plane landed in Montreal, where paramedics treated him. But they were unable to save him, and Pant died, his daughter said.
"It was all formalities," she said of their efforts. "They put him down on the aisle, started giving him CPR, and I was hysterical at that time. I went back to my mom-in-law and I said, 'He's gone. I don't know what they're doing. He's already gone.'"
Pande said that crew members approached her after her father died and tried consoling her.
"I told them to get away from me," Pande told Insider. "I said, 'You said this was not a life-threatening emergency … but see what you have done to my dad.'"
Pande said her father was officially pronounced dead at a Montreal hospital from a "presumed infarction" — the death of heart tissue resulting from an inadequate blood supply.
Two months after the incident, she is still angry with Air Canada.
The airline said it filled out a checklist, which is then given to the pilot to discuss with the medical provider, CBC reported, but the airline did not provide it to CBC and Pande told the outlet she could not recall seeing anyone filling out a form.
She told Insider that she's pursuing legal action against Air Canada.
"I'm not interested in compensation," she said. "I'm not seeking that right now because I'm not in that frame of mind. For me, my father's life is what matters. I'm looking for an answer, which they are not giving me, so we are left with no choice but to seek a lawyer … because they have to give us a reason. I want to know why they didn't divert the flight."
