Sunday, August 9, 2020

Mother gets news of pilot death on her 83rd birthday

Mother gets news of pilot death on her 83rd birthday

Shishir.Arya@timesgroup.com

Nagpur:09.08.2020

It was Neela Sathe’s 83rd birthday on Saturday when she received the tragic news of the death of her son Deepak in an air crash in Kozhikode.

Neela’s daughter Anjali Parashar, who lives in Mumbai, had planned to give her parents a surprise by coming to Nagpur. Instead, she had to rush to Kozhikode to collect Deepak’s body. The Sathes have been residing in the city’s quiet Bharat Nagar area since the 1950s when Deepak’s father Brigadier Vasant Sathe (now 87) retired from the army education corps.

The couple lost their elder son, 2nd Lieutenant Vikas Sathe, in an accident. He was returning to his unit after a military exercise in 1981. Deepak, too, had met with a major accident in Chandigarh, soon after joining the IAF and many thought that would be the end of his flying career.

“The news of Vikas’s death and Deepak’s recovery almost came together,” said Suvarna Sathe, a relative.

A tenant of the Sathes said that they got the news about Deepak’s death on Friday night itself, “but we waited till morning to inform his parents”. Suvarna shared the reaction of Sathe’s parents, saying, “The mother said why should God take them both the same way, but remained stoic. The father has been blank since he was told. He hasn’t spoken much and has not even shed a tear.”

Captain Sathe’s mortal remains will be flown to Mumbai on Sunday to his home in Nahar’s Zinnia, Powai. His wife Sushma Sathe travelled to Kozhikode by a special flight on Saturday morning and his younger son, Dhananjay, too joined his mother from Bengaluru. Captain Sathe’s elder son Shantanu who works at Amazon will also fly in from Seattle and return home on Sunday, relatives said.

(With inputs from Hemali Chhapia in Mumbai)

This was the second tragedy for Deepak’s parents (above), who had lost their elder son, second lieutenant Vikas Sathe, in an accident in 1981. Deepak’s wife and son arrived in Kozhikode on Saturday (left)

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