Sunday, December 21, 2008

Indian girl killed in Sydney mid-air crash

Chandrika Gaur, an 18-year-old Indian trainee pilot in Australia, and her flight instructor were killed when their Cessna collided mid-air with another light plane over suburban Sydney.

Gaur, the daughter of Indian doctors, and her instructor Joanne Ethell, in her early 20s, were killed when their plane collided mid-air with a Liberty XL2. It was flown by Ken Andrews, 89, a World War II Spitfire pilot.

Gaur was unusually chirpy that fateful morning. Over a cup of coffee, she was joking about getting married and having children, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

"She'd been depressed recently because she hasn't been doing much flying," said the owner of a Bankstown Airport cafe, Eddy Omeissah, who had befriended the trainee pilot. "Now look how fate treats her."


Omeissah said Gaur was a charming young woman. "I made her a coffee this morning and joked around about getting married and having kids. . . She was 18, very pure, nice girl, very well mannered, from a privileged background," Omeissah added.

"Both of her parents were doctors in India. She was very quiet, subdued. But she had such a pretty face she'd get away with being quiet, you know."

"She didn't [say] she was going to fly or not [today] … There's a lack of aeroplanes there for the number of students, so they never knew when they were going to fly or not."

Investigators were at the crash site looking for clues to what caused the accident.

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