Manitoba cardiologist, dentist trained, worked in India hospital complex where jet crashed

Winnipeg Free Press

13-06-2025

The crash of an Air India jet into a section of an Indian hospital complex shortly after takeoff Thursday has hit two Winnipeggers who trained and worked there years ago particularly hard.
The Boeing 787 bound for London with 242 people on board. A passenger was reported to be the sole survivor. At least five medical students were killed and 50 other people were injured on the ground.
Dr. Ashish Shah, a cardiologist at St. Boniface Hospital, graduated as a doctor from the B.J. Medical College in Ahmedabad, India, in 1996, and lived about 150 metres away from where the plane went down. Dr. Tarik Patel, who is now just a few weeks away from finishing his three-year residency at the University of Manitoba's dental school to become a prosthodontist here, worked in dentistry at the nearby hospital.
Shah, who grew up in a town about 200 kilometres away from Ahmedabad, said he began getting messages around 4 a.m., from doctors he graduated with almost three decades ago, who quickly told him what had happened.
'To see this, it is just heartbreaking,' he said. 'It just feels like it fell on my own house.'
Shah went on to train in internal medicine in the United Kingdom in 2013, followed by interventional cardiology in Canada in 2014 and then a fellowship in 2015, said he has gone back several times through the years to visit people at the school.
'I was just there a year ago,' he said. 'I went to medical school there years ago, but when I see what happened there, the buildings where I was, it just feels like yesterday.'
The city has been hit with tragedy before. Shah was living there when that area of India and neighbouring Pakistan was hit by a massive earthquake on Jan. 26, 2001. More than 20,000 people died, 166,000 were injured and 442 area villages lost about 70 per cent of their housing.
'I saw a wave on the floor going through my apartment and I ran outside,' he said. 'I saw a 10-storey building swaying sideways and then the building collapsed. I can't forget it.'
Shah said he has been on that flight several times in the past.
'My siblings are there. I'm very well connected to the town. I spent a fair amount of my life there and when I go back I land there.
'This is a very sad day. It just reminds you how fragile life is.'
Patel, he worked for a few years at the hospital complex in Ahmadabad as a prosthodontist before coming here in 2022.
'I have many friends there,' he said.
'The hospital is one of the largest public hospitals of India. There were many residents there like me. And I've taken that flight. It's the flight you take when you go to London and then from there you fly to Toronto. It's a pretty standard flight.'
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Patel said he didn't live in the medical school's residence that was hit by the plane, but he has been inside it.
'You would hang out with people and you would go there,' he said. 'There would have been many bright minds there. It's a great loss for their families.'
Meanwhile, Mintu Sandhu, the province's minister of public service delivery, issued a statement saying he was 'deeply saddened to hear about the tragic Air India plane crash.
'My heartfelt condolences go out to the families of the passengers and crew who lost their lives. We mourn with the Indian community here in Manitoba and around the world during this difficult time.'
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Kevin RollasonReporter
Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press's city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.
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