After her father fell unwell on a recent 16-hour flight from India to Canada and passed away upon arrival, the retiree’s daughter is turning to a major Canadian airline for answers.

Shanu Pande says she still doesn’t understand why the airline staff didn’t divert the plane to the closest hospital and airport in Europe, even after she asked them to do so multiple times.

“I made several requests—three or four times,” Pande said.

She learned that her father, Harish Chandra Pant, 83, had passed away from what is believed to have been a myocardial infarction, and she characterizes the event as “extremely traumatic.”

On September 10, Harish Pant and his family member Saroj Pande arrived at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport in preparation for a journey to Montreal.

Pant, a landed immigrant in his twilight years, was in the midst of relocating permanently from his Mumbai residence to Milton, Ontario.

Pande recalled her dad by saying, “What he loved about being in Canada was the natural beauty.”

“He loved coming here because he was an avid reader and could easily access the library.”

Pande reports that she, her father, and her mother-in-law boarded an Air Canada jet shortly before midnight on September 10 to travel 16 hours to Montreal before connecting with a flight to Toronto, following an evening dinner at an airport lounge.

She claims that seven hours into the trip, Pant got sick.

Pande recalled, “He began to complain of severe chest pain and to make a grumbling noise and his face to fall on one side.”

Pande claims that she and her mother-in-law sought for help because they thought he might be experiencing cardiac problems. This caused three or four crew members to take their seats.

After vomiting for a few minutes, the elderly person would be too weak to go to the bathroom on his own. He would be placed in a wheelchair and taken to a toilet for additional care and cleaning.

Pande claims that at that point, in order to get to a hospital, she asked for a doctor and for the flight to be diverted.

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She claims the crew informed her that since it was deemed a non-life-threatening emergency, the flight would go to Canada without any deviation after he was given a business class seat.

About nine hours after Pant’s initial complaints, paramedics would board the aircraft in Montreal and begin treating the senior, according to Pande.

Pant would eventually be declared dead in a hospital after getting off the aircraft at around seven in the morning.

A distraught Pande described the airline’s behavior as “arrogant” and “callous,” and expressed her anger at the lack of consideration and understanding her family members received throughout the tragedy.

In a response to Global News, Air Canada expressed its “deepest sympathies” for the family’s loss but stated that it “rejects any assertions” that it was to blame for the death.

The company maintains that the crew behaved appropriately during the incident and that customer safety is the “overriding priority” on all Air Canada flights.

“We can confirm that the passenger was continuously cared for by Air Canada’s crew throughout the flight in question, including moving him to the business cabin so he could fully recline,” the statement read. The crew followed the correct protocols for handling onboard medical occurrences.

The airline clarified that it works with a specific third-party ground-to-air medical supplier that allows crew members to communicate with aviation medicine specialists in real-time.

“We will divert an aircraft to a nearby airport with appropriate medical facilities based on the advice of medical experts, something we do 40 times a year on average to obtain care without hesitation,” stated Air Canada.

Pant was conscious when they arrived, but they said that he “passed away while being attended to by the paramedics.”

If Pande’s request for a diversion had been accepted, she thinks her father would still be alive today.

Since arriving home, she claims to have gotten in touch with the airline via phone call and email.

The family has contacted a lawyer and is considering their legal options because they are not happy with the reasons provided.

In the end, Pande said they want disciplinary action taken against those involved and are requesting that the airline disclose who rejected the diversion.