Daughter of Indian immigrants among victims of US air crash

Asra Hussain Raza was among 67 people killed in a midair collision between an Army helicopter and a jetliner at Ronald Reagan National Airport in the US

Washington: Asra Hussain Raza, the daughter of Indian immigrants, was among 67 people killed in a tragic midair collision between an Army helicopter and a jetliner at Ronald Reagan National Airport in the US, according to a media report.

The collision, deadliest aviation disaster in the US since 2001, happened when American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with the Army helicopter as it approached the airport on Wednesday night. Raza, 26, was one of several victims killed, her father-in-law, Dr Hashim Raza, said.

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A daughter of Indian immigrants, Raza graduated with honours in 2020 from Indiana University and married her college sweetheart in August 2023, Raza said.

Raza was a Washington, DC-based consultant who travelled to Wichita twice a month to work on a turnaround project for a hospital there, her father-in-law said.

She would often call him at the end of his late emergency room shifts to make sure he stayed awake on the drive home, he told CNN. “She went out of her way for everybody,” her father-in-law said.

The husband of a victim of the Potomac crash said his wife texted him that she was about to land, but by the time he got to the airport to pick her up, his life had changed forever. “She said, ‘We’re landing in 20 minutes,’” Hamaad Raza said. That was the last thing he heard from his wife.

“I was waiting and I started seeing a bunch of EMS vehicles speeding past me, like way too many than normal, and two, my texts weren’t going through,” Hamaad said. “It’s just, feels crazy that it happened to us, to be honest,” he said.

“I mean, it’s like you see these things happen in the news, you see them happen in other countries. And then, I show up to the airport, and my wife’s not responding, and I look on Twitter and I see that it’s her flight.”

He said he’s been surrounded by loved ones who are all devastated by the tragic and unexpected loss.