Air Carshes - A Sordid Tale

After working for nearly 20 years in the newspaper industry, covering air crashes are the worst for any photojournalist. Though I have covered about 6 air crashes so far the one which I covered in Bangalore of the Air bus A 320 crash outside the Bangalore Airport wall in 1990 and later the Mid-air collision between the Saudi Arabian Airways and the Kazakhstan flight at Charki Dadri in Haryana in 1996 are the worst reminders of my crash coverage's which also keeps giving me nightmares to date.
What most people's perception of news photojournalist is that they are heartless and are emotionless people. If one as look it from the photojournalist's point of view at the end of the day he ensures that the whole world gets a first hand view of the accident.
I have been asked by hundreds of people whom I have come across these two decades of work asking me the same question, Are you heartless?
Well not so. Photojournalists are humans too and they do have a heart which does cry many a times behind a veiled curtain away from the preying eyes of society. Photojournalists become a subject of ridicule even by their fellow writing journalists who are named reporters, subeditors and many more such fancy designations of late, even after he gives them various leads in their scores of stories which they wistfully claim to be theirs.
Well lets us get back to crashes which gives me nightmares and why so, the first air crash of the A-320 in Bangalore made me cry as I noticed the charred remains of the passengers and more so of an two year old child who’s body was carried with bare hands by an firefighter. I covered the accident for three days, from the site to the mortuary and departure of the coffins to their respective destinations.
At the end of each day I looked at the published pictures which made me cry more and hit the booze bottle early in the day. This was one way of hiding my human side but ensuring that my paper had the best images on a daily basis. Which any good news photojournalists will agree too.

The Bangalore Air Bus A 320 Crash


The Site with the mangled remains along with charred beyond recognition of the victims in the Air Bus A 320 crash outside the HAL Bangalore airport on 14th February, 1990.
The plane, an Airbus 320 delivered to the national domestic carrier on Dec. 24, 1989, was carrying 135 passengers, 4 additional passengers who were infants not assigned seats and a crew of 7 at the time of the crash.


The Charki Dadri Mid Air Collision

The 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision occurred on 12 November 1996 when Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 763 (SV 763), a Boeing 747-168B en route from New Delhi, India, to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, collided in mid-air with Air Kazakhstan Flight 1907 (9Y 1907), an Ilyushin Il-76 en route from Shymkent, Kazakhstan to New Delhi, over the village of Charkhi Dadri, Haryana, India. All 349 people on board both flights were killed, making it the deadliest mid-air collision to date.

These two air crashes were covered by me for the Times of India and The Hindustan Times respectively during my stint with them.