Two Indian brothers, one of them a pilot instructor, have died along with an American
national in a plane crash in the US, reports here said.
The two brothers -- identified as Kartik Kalaichelvan (22) and Pratik Kalaichelvan (19) -- whose father Alangiam P Kalaichelvan works as a pilot for Kingfisher Airlines in Bangalore died in the crash on July 13 in a small town Tolar
some 45 miles Southwest of Forth Worth in Texas.
American national Casey Brinegar, 26, a pilot
instructor also died. Both Casey and Kartik were pilot instructors at Skymates Flight College in Arlington, Texas.
Pratik who was studying dentistry in Chennai came to visit his brother and was scheduled to go back to India in a couple of days.
Casey and Kartik were showing Pratik Texas from the sky. All three of them flew out in Casey's four-seat, single engine aircraft on Tuesday night for a dinner and coming back
to Arlington Airport when this accident happened, said the Telugu Association of North America in a media release. The right wing of the 1964 'Beech Craft Bonanza' hit the ground and the single-engine plane tumbled, according to
an NTSB investigator. A witness told investigators that the engine sounded rough and then the four-seat airplane nosedived.
Kartik learned to fly from Casey and was accumulating flight time before returning to India to be a commercial pilot like his dad. Casey and Kartik died at the scene and Pratik
was taken by a helicopter to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth where he later died. There was no fire and no one else was hurt. The cause of the crash was still under investigation.
"Parents of Kartik and Pratik are in transit to Dallas and are expected to reach here today. Srinivas Lanka, Morgan, friends of Kartik and a team of volunteers are making arrangements to get all the needed documents and transfer the
bodies to a local funeral home," said Prasad Thotakura, General Secretary of the Indian American Friendship Council (IAFC).
"Parents want to take the bodies of their sons to Bangalore so we are making necessary arrangements. We express our deepest condolences to Kalaichelvan family on the loss of two young men," he said.