Air India crash | All you need to know about the crew members who perished in the tragedy

Air India flight AI-171, operating from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick crashed on June 12 at 1:38 pm. The deadly crash claimed 241 lives.

According to Air India, of the 230 passengers, 169 were Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.

There were also 10 crew members and two pilots on board. Majority of the crew members including the two pilots stayed in Mumbai.

Captain Sumeet Sabharwal

The two-member technical crew - Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, a Line Training Captain (LTC), had 8,200 hours of flying experience while he was assisted by First Officer Clive Kunder, who had logged 1,100 flying hours.

Clive originally hails from Mangaluru but now stayed in Mumbai.

Clive had trained at Paris Air Inc, a Florida-based flight training institute, and had clocked 1,100 hours of flying experience.

As per a report by The Indian Express, he was just months away from retirement. Captain Sumeet Sabharwal stayed in Powai.

Sabharwal was living with his 90 year old father and had plans of spending more time with him after his retirement. He has an elder sister, living in Delhi. Her two sons are in the same profession as Sabharwal, the report mentioned.

Crew members

There were two senior cabin crew members in the flight, Shradha Dhavan and Aparna Mahadik.

Aparna Mahadik (42), resident of Goregaon, is a relative of Maharashtra NCP President Sunil Tatkare, the MP from Raigad.

Aparna Mahadik (43), another crew member, was a resident of Goregaon in the western suburbs, and her husband also works with Air India as a crew member.

The other cabin crew members were:

Saineeta Chakravarti, Nganthoi Kongbrailatpam Sharma, Deepak Pathak, Maithili Patil, Irfan Shaikh, Lamnunthem Singson, Roshni Songhare, Rajendra and Manisha Thapa

Deepak Pathak:

Deepak Pathak was one of the flight attendants in the plane and had over 11 years of experience. Pathak called his family before every flight and he did the same on the day the tragic event happened.

"We never thought it (the call) would be the last," a family member said, as reported by TOI.

Before an official confirmation, his family said when they tried calling him, his phone was still ringing.

Cabin crew member Deepak Pathak lived in Badlapur in neighbouring Thane district.

Pathak's sister had earlier said he spoke to his mother before leaving for London. He had been working with Air India for 11 years, she said.

Saineeta Chakravarty:

Saineeta Chakravarty, a resident of Juhu Koliwada, was one of the members of the cabin crew. Having been recently joined air India, Chakravarty had previously worked with Go Air.

Maithili Moreshwar Patil:

Before her flight to London, Air India crew member Maithili Patil had made a final, comforting promise to her father, Moreshwar Patil, that she would call him once she reached the city. But the call did not come.

A resident of Nhava village, Patil joined Air India two years ago and is the daughter of an ONGC labour contractor, former sarpanch of Nhava Jitendra Mhatre told PTI.

Mhatre, who is also Patil's relative, recalled that she had called her father minutes before the tragedy, assuring him that she would call once she reached London.

Roshni Rajendra Songhare:

Roshni Rajendra Songhare, a crew member hailed from Dombivli and Juhu Koliwada.

Songhare was also a travel influencer with more than 54,000 followers on Instagram.

She was a resident of Dombivili and had joined Air India recently.

Irfan Samir Shaikh:

Irfan Samir Shaikh, one of the cabin crew members had joined the aviation industry only two years ago and had big dreams, which are now shattered, his family member said.

Twenty-two-year-old Shaikh's family resides in Pimpri Chinchwad area near Pune city.

Irfan's uncle Firoz Shaikh said his nephew always made it a point to inform his parents about his flight roster.

Shaikh said that after the incident, Irfan's mother, father and elder brother immediately flew to Ahmedabad.

Irfan had joined the aviation industry as a cabin crew member two years ago after completing a course from an institute, his uncle said.

He initially worked with Vistara, and after the Air India-Vistara merger, he began flying on international routes, he said.

(With DHNS, PTI and Reuters inputs)