Patna/Bettiah, May 27: Twenty-one-year-old Rahul Raj aspired to be a pilot. But his maiden take-off proved to be his last.

A resident of Bettiah, Rahul had scored 79 per cent marks in his Class X exam. This year, apart from appearing for his Class XII board exam, he had taken the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE), the first step towards achieving his goal — to be a pilot. But little did he know that fate had something else in store for him. Fighting a losing war against acute jaundice and typhoid at a Patna hospital ICU, Rahul was being air-lifted to a Delhi hospital on Wednesday night when the chartered flight providing air ambulance services crashed in the densely-populated Jawahar Colony of Faridabad, killing seven occupants. Three women were also killed on the ground. The New Delhi-based Air Charter Services Private Limited, which owned the small single-engine turboprop plane, said all care was taken to ensure the aircraft was in perfect condition.

The plane had taken off from Jai Prakash Narayan International Airport here at 8.30pm on Wednesday with critically ill Rahul, his cousin Ratnesh Kumar, a male nurse, two Delhi-based Apollo Hospital doctors, a pilot and a co-pilot.

The plane crashed just 15 minutes before landing at Indira Gandhi International Airport after apparently hitting rough weather conditions.

The Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has formed a team to probe into the causes of the freak crash with initial reports indicating malfunction and strong winds.

“This plane (PC-12, registration number: VTACF) was four years old. Representatives of DGCA carries out its maintenance every month according to said standards. There was no problem with the aircraft. The reason for this unfortunate crash is bad weather,” Sunil Gaur, director (operations), aircraft division of the company, told The Telegraph today.

Expressing deep shock and regret over the incident, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said: “Concrete arrangements for utmost security and safety of passengers aboard any aircraft must be in place all the time. The pilots should be given proper training to beat any risk and untoward incident. They should be trained on the art of landing aircraft in secure zones in case of a problem. Undoubtedly, there has to be a facility of dual engines in every aircraft.”

On May 22, Rahul, the son of businessman Rajesh Kumar, was admitted to Jagdish Hospital in Bihar with serious liver problems. Alok Kumar, the director of Jagdish Hospital, said Rahul was suffering from acute jaundice and typhoid.

“On May 25, Rahul slipped into coma and was put on ventilator. His family grew anxious and contacted Apollo Hospital, Delhi. An air ambulance service was arranged and Rahul was taken to Patna airport by ambulance at 7.30pm on Wednesday. The flight took off an hour later around 8.30pm.”

Sources at Patna airport said checks on bigger planes before each flight was mandatory. But the same was not for smaller ones.

“The pilot has got a check-list and the equipment need to be checked before each take-off. However, in case of smaller planes, the decision solely rests on the pilot. The DGCA air-worthiness officer is responsible for checking aircraft. In this case, we cannot say whether the plane was checked or not,” an airport official said on condition of anonymity.

Mahesh Singh, the air-worthiness officer of DGCA posted in Patna, was not available for comments.

Meanwhile, the loss of the two youths has completely shattered the Kumar family in Bettiah.

“Rahul had appeared for Plus Two board exam from MJK College, Bettiah, and AIEEE exam this year, while Ratnesh was in his BA final year,” Indrasan Prasad Choudhary, Rahul’s maternal grandfather, told The Telegraph.

Choudhary said: “We are thankful to the Apollo Hospital management because its strict rules did not allow Rahul’s father and maternal uncle from boarding the air ambulance and asked them to take an earlier flight to Delhi. How uglier the situation could have been if they hadn’t stopped them.”

For Rahul’s friends, the youth was someone they could always trust.

“He had secured 79 per cent marks in his Class X board exam. His helpful attitude always brought him closer to his friends or anybody he met,” said Ankit Mittal, a friend of Rahul who had come from Raxaul.