Photo credit: Redbird website

NEW DELHI: A Delhi-bound air ambulance with seven people, including two crew members, on board crashed shortly after take off from Ranchi on Monday night. The Beechcraft C90 (VT-AJV) belonging to Redbird Airways Pvt Ltd (not the pilot training academy) had gotten airborne at 7.11 pm. It is learnt just after climbing to 6,000 feet, the pilots contacted Kolkata air traffic control to request “weather deviation” — meaning they wanted to change course to avoid bad weather. However, the 39-year-old plane crashed soon thereafter.The aircraft operating a “medical evacuation (air ambulance) flight on Ranchi-Delhi sector crashed in Kasaria Panchayat of Chatra district, in Jharkhand. There were seven persons on board including two crew members. The aircraft was airborne from Ranchi at 7.11 pm. After establishing contact with Kolkata at 7.34 pm, aircraft lost communication and RADAR contact with Kolkata at approximately 100 nautical miles south-east of Varanasi. District Administration search and rescue team is at the location and Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) team is being dispatched for investigation,” the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA said in a preliminary statement.According to the flight manifest, the aircraft had a patient (Sanjay Kumar), doctor (Dr Vikash Kumar Gupta), paramedic (Sachin Kumar Mishra), two attendants (Archana Devi & Dhuru Kumar) and two pilots — Captains Vivek Vikas Bhagat and Savrajdeep Singh — on board. It was expected to arrive in Delhi at 10 pm.This is the second crash within a month involving small aircraft and raises serious question marks on aviation safety in India. On Jan 28, Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar and four others had died in a plane crash at Baramati airport.In May 2011, a Pilatus PC-12 operating as an air ambulance from Patna to Delhi had crashed in Faridabad. Seven people on board, including two pilots, and three on ground had lost their lives in that crash.