An 83-year-old father who died on an Air Canada long-haul flight from India to Toronto might still be grieving if the crew had listened to his family’s desperate pleas and diverted the plane when he began having health problems, his daughter told Insider.
Pender told Insider she was excited about the trip. She said her father, Harish Pant, was granted permanent residency in Canada after a long and difficult application process.
Pande told Insider that she flew from New Delhi to Toronto with her father and mother-in-law in September, with a brief stop in Montreal.
But things took a turn for the worse when Harish Pant’s health began to deteriorate seven hours into the trip, Pande said.
Pande told Insider that he began experiencing chest pains, followed by bowel control, nausea and back pain.
Pande said her mother-in-law, a heart patient, said Pant was showing clear signs of a heart attack.
Pande told Insider that she pleaded with the crew to change course and land the plane so her father could be taken to the hospital.
But the crew refused after consulting with the pilot, she said, adding that the flight continued for another nine hours as her father’s condition worsened.
Pender said the crew did not give her a chance to speak to the pilot.
“I should have knocked on the cockpit,” Pender told the CBC, which first reported what happened to Pender’s family.
But in a statement emailed to Insider, an Air Canada spokesperson said the airline “categorically rejects any suggestion that it was responsible for the passenger’s death.”
The airline said the crew followed the correct procedures for handling emergencies on board. A spokesperson told CBC News that the crew’s recollection of events differed from the family’s “in several important respects.”
Air Canada told Insider it is in contact with the third-party medical provider the airline uses to develop a care plan, but the provider is not recommending a diversion.
The airline said Pant and his daughter were moved to business-class seats so he could lie flat.
Pande told Insider that the crew tried unsuccessfully to get help from a passenger with medical training, and that the crew denied her requests to give her father electrolytes and her repeated requests to land the plane.
She also claimed the crew failed to monitor her father’s blood pressure or give him medication, even though the crew said they were trained in first aid.
The plane eventually landed in Montreal, where he was treated by paramedics. But his daughter said they could not save him, and Pant died.
“It’s all a formality,” she said of their efforts. “They laid him out in the hallway and started CPR on him, and I was hysterical. I went back to my mother-in-law and said, ‘He’s gone. I don’t know what they’re doing. He’s gone. ‘”
Pender said that after her father died, crew members approached her and tried to comfort her.
“I told them to stay away from me,” Pender told Insider. “I said, ‘You said this wasn’t a life-threatening emergency … but look what you did to my dad.'”
Pender said her father was officially pronounced dead at a Montreal hospital from a “suspected infarction” – the death of heart tissue due to a lack of blood supply.
Two months after the incident, she’s still angry with Air Canada.
The airline said it filled out a checklist and gave it to pilots to discuss with their medical providers, but the airline did not provide the checklist to CBC News, and Pender told the outlet she did not remember seeing people filling out forms.
She told Insider she is pursuing legal action against Air Canada.
“I’m not interested in compensation,” she said. “I’m not looking for that now because I don’t have that mentality. My father’s life is all that matters to me. I’m looking for answers, but they’re not giving them to me, so we’re left with ‘no choice,’ just get a lawyer… because they have to give us a reason. I wonder why they didn’t change the route. “
