Family braces for second plane tragedy as search for MH370 enters third day

For the family of Canadian-Indian Muktesh Mukherjee, this would be the second time they may have “lost” a family member as a result of a plane crash.

“We’re living in fear of a second disaster in the air in our family,” a member of Muktesh’s family, who declined to be identified, told the Indian Telegraph newspaper today.

Muktesh, 42, and his wife, Xiaomo Bai, 37 were among the 227 passengers on the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared two days ago after departing Kuala Lumpur, sparking an international search and rescue operation which has yet to locate any wreckage of the plane.

The couple were on the way to their family home in Beijing.

His mother Uma left for Beijing after receiving news of the incident.

Forty-one years ago, Muktesh's grandfather, Mohan Kumaramangalam, a steel and mines minister, who served under the late Indira Gandhi’s cabinet, was killed in a plane crash. His body would have been unidentifiable if it weren’t for a pen and hearing aid recognised by his family on him.

The Indian airlines had departed from Madras (now Chennai) for New Delhi, but crashed 3 miles away from the New Delhi airport on May 30, 1973, in what was later discovered to have been caused by human error.

“We are trying to gather information and get the family together,” Muktesh’s cousin Mangaljit Mukherjee told the paper.

A friend of the couple told Canada's Globe and Mail that Muktesh, who is vice-president for China operations at Pennsylvania-based Xcoal Energy & Resources, and his wife had lived in Montreal before moving back to Beijing.

"Mr Mukherjee met Xiaomo Bai in Beijing while on a business trip. She was his guide and translator," said Robert Godmer, a real estate agent, describing the couple as "very nice and very sociable".

He said after they lived in Montreal, they moved to Chicago, and from there headed back to Beijing. – March 10, 2014.