Student pilot in Saturday's crash hoped to fly in India
A trainee co-piloting a single-engine plane that crashed west of Boynton Beach (Florida, US) Saturday night was a young student from India who came here with the goal of one day flying commercial airliners back home.
Instead, 18-year-old Arjun Chhikara was killed along with his instructor, 46-year-old Anders Selberg, when their Piper P-28 Archer crashed on a golf course in the Quail Ridge Country Club off Golf Road.
The lone survivor in the wreck, 38-year-old passenger Chandrashekhar Godghate, was taken to Delray Medical Center, where he remains in critical condition.
Chhikara’s friends here were left to reflect on his sudden death Monday. One roommate, 18-year-old Jignesh Chitroda, said Chhikara and Godghate were from Bombay or Delhi. Like Chhikara, Chitroda had enrolled in flight school hoping to earn his certification and find work in the burgeoning Indian airline industry, he said.
Chitroda said he had lived with Chhikara and Godghate since he left Bombay for flight training in the U.S. on Oct. 9, but he added that he hadn’t gotten to know them well. He shrugged at mention of the fatal wreck. These things happen, he said.
Chhikara and Chitroda were among a handful of young Indian pilot trainees who shared an apartment on 2nd Avenue North west of Lake Worth, he said.
Kemper Aviation apparently has made a cottage industry of training Indian flight students. Akshay Mohan, a U.S. citizen who came here from India, co-owns the flight school, and the company’s Web site includes a separate section devoted to attracting Indian trainees.
Officials at Kemper Aviation refused to comment beyond the written statement released after the wreck.
Chitroda said many aspiring Indian pilots opt to train in the U.S. rather than India, where flight schools are few.
He said it’s typical for Indian students to come here on visas, as he did, and spend about 10 months training before returning to India, where they can take an equivalency exam and apply for work at one of India’s many airlines.
“There is a boom,” he said.
29/10/07 Michael LaForgia/Palm Beach Post, United States