Captain Deepak Sathe had planned to surprise his mother on her 84th birthday on Saturday and when he took his seat in the cockpit of the Air India Express flight, he might have felt excited that his mother would be left with surprise after seeing him and with the ethos of seeing his mother and with the happiness of rescuing 185 people as part of the Vande Bharat Mission, this 58-year-old former Indian Air Force pilot took off from Dubai. 

When he neared Kozhikode, he also neared the catastrophe that ultimately ruined his plan of surprising his mother. The aircraft had a daunting landing amid heavy rains and poor visibility and when it touched on the tabletop runway at the Kozhikode airport at around 7.40 pm on Friday, it had skidded off the runway, fell into a gorge and collided on the wall. The mishap, which had become one of the fatal plane crashes in a decade, had killed 18 people including two pilots, and put over 120 others in the hospitals. 

Captain Deepak Sathe is one of the pilots who died of the plane crash. Sathe was planning to pay a surprise visit to Nagpur on his mother's birthday on Saturday. However, hours before his mother turn into 84, Sathe had died at the age of 58. Speaking to PTI, Sathe's nephew told that the captain had last met his parents in March and he had been in touch with them over the phone and he had last spoken to his parents a day before yesterday. 

Sathe's nephew stated that the captain had told some of the relatives that he would pay a surprise visit to his mother on her birthday if the flights are available. Sathe's mother Neela Sathe said that her son told her not to exit the house due to the coronavirus outbreak. She had broken out after hearing the news of her son's death and said, "He would tell me that he would feel bad if something happens to me and suddenly this tragedy had struck, what can we do before the will of God".

She remembered his son and recalled that he was top in everything in studies and in sports. He was brilliant in table tennis and squash and he was also good at horse riding. Neela Sathe further recalled that Deepak Sathe was very helpful and would do anything for others. He had saved the children of servicemen by carrying them on his shoulders during the Gujarat floods. 

Neela stated that "Our son had conferred with 'Sword of Honor' and he is also the first person in Maharashtra to get all the eight prizes of the Air Force. Neela Sathe is currently living with her husband Vasant Sathe, a retired colonel, in Bharat Nagar in Mumbai. Her elder son Vikas Sathe, who was a Lieutenant in Army, had died in a road accident and now the loss of her younger son had filled the family of army with tears. 

Captain Sathe was a former Wing Commander of the Indian Air Force and he was an alumnus of the National Defence Academy (NDA). He served in the Air Force for 22 years before switching to the commercial aircraft. He was described as the experienced pilot in flying Boeing 737 aircraft and the crashed Air India Express flight was also a Boeing 737 aircraft.

Along with Captain Sathe, his co-pilot Akhilesh Kumar, a native of Madura, Uttar Pradesh, had also died along with 16 others. Captain Sathe was living with his wife in Mumbai and he has two sons - Dhananjay and Shantanu. While Dhananjay is in Bangalore and trying to reach Kozhikode, Shantanu was living in the United States and he won't be able to come. 

Akhilesh Kumar had got married in 2017 and he had left behind his pregnant wife. Sathe's nephew said that the body of Captain Sathe is yet to be handed over to the family and his wife and brother-in-law had arrived in Kozhikode and the decision about where to conduct his last rites hasn't been taken. According to the reports, former IAF Wing Commander, who was senior to Deepak Sathe, said that Sathe would have taken great efforts to ensure the aircraft won't get caught up with fire as it would further get worse and would increase fatalities. Some of the survivors of the crash had also commended Sathe's presence of mind in saving their lives.

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