Haveri’s pilot flies for over 120 hrs for medical emergency

Kumar V Hiregoudar, a pilot and Vijayapura Sanik School’s alumnus flew the SpiceJet's Boeing 737 for more than 120 hours in the last 40 days to areas severely affected by novel coronavirus as part of the medical emergency.

For Hiregoudar, a native of Haveri, flying for the medical emergency was a priority than bringing back his son and daughter stranded in America and Ukraine. There is no permission to visit these two countries for non-medical purposes.

The 55-year-old former Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot flew to Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Bangkok, Colombo, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Philippines either to deliver or collect medicine.

He is one of the pilots to voluntarily respond to the SpiceJet Chairman Ajay Singh’s call for medical emergency service.

Hiregoudar said he wasn’t afraid to visit those destinations as he was flying for a cause.

“It’s a state of mind. Fear vanishes if you convince yourself that you are serving for a cause,” he explains.

After realising that adequate safety measures were in place against novel coronavirus inside the flight and at airports, his family members heaved a sigh of relief.

Hiregoudar, who served with the IAF for more than 24 years and has 13,500 hours of flying experience over the last 34 years, faced challenges due to the accent of Chinese authorities in China.

“It was tricky to land at the Hong Kong and a few other airports as I was landing there for the first time,” he explains.

SpiceJet Head of Operations Gurucharan Arora and staff of the airports at destinations he landed ensured that he executed his tasks smoothly.

He had to undergo several rounds of scanning and sanitising before and after boarding the plane. It was mandatory to wear personal protection equipment before landing in any airport abroad. The plane was disinfected before taking off in India and after landing at the airport abroad.

Hiregoudar has a sense of fulfilment now. "The kind of fulfilment a pilot gets for rendering national service is unparalleled,” he said.