Kaavya Vishwanathan’s parents die in US plane crash

They had refueled their single-engine Cirrus CR22 plane at Rickenbacker Airport with plans to go home,Lt. Gary Lewis of the Ohio State Highway Patrol said.

Shortly after takeoff on Sunday,the plane crashed in a cornfield south of the runways,killing the husband and wife,both physicians,The Columbus Dispatch reported. Lewis identified the victims as Dr. Viswanathan Rajaraman,54,the pilot,and Dr. Mary J. Sundaram,50,of Franklin Lakes,New Jersey.

Rajaraman,who hailed from Tamil Nadu was a brain-cancer specialist and was also a licensed pilot.

Kaavya,24,made headlines in 2006 because of rampant plagiarism allegations against her novel,’How Opal Mehta Got Kissed,Got Wild,and Got a Life.’

Doug Smith,a battalion chief with the Columbus Division of Fire,said firefighters from Rickenbacker were checking equipment and saw the plane go down shortly before 9 am. Crews were at the crash scene within two minutes,Smith said. The plane caught fire,and little was left after the flames were extinguished,he said.

Firefighters from Madison and Hamilton townships also responded,as did troopers from the patrol and deputies with the Franklin County sheriff’s office. The crash was just north of the Franklin-Pickaway county line.

The airplane was registered to Buds Aviation in Franklin Lakes,NJ,said Lt. Rudy Zupanc of the state patrol. The plane could seat four people,but only two were on board,Lewis said.

The aircraft is equipped with a parachute system that could lower the plane to the ground after deployment in an emergency. Smith said an explosive charge activates the parachute system. A container with the explosive charge was found 30 yards behind the debris,he said. The parachute,found nearby,had not deployed.

Investigators hadn’t determined the cause of the crash. Officials were checking whether weather conditions or instrument readings could have played a role. The airport was closed from the time of the crash until about 10:30 am.

Lewis said the couple arrived in Columbus about 4:30 pm. Friday after visiting their daughter,who recently graduated from Georgetown University law school in Washington DC. It was not known why they had stopped in Columbus.

The plane carried about 40 gallons of fuel when it took off on Sunday.

Rajaraman had a valid pilot’s license,Lewis said. Rajaraman was chief of neurooncology at the Cancer

Center at Hackensack University Medical Center,the Columbus Dispath reported.

He specialised in the treatment of brain cancer and was skilled in advanced surgical methods,including noninvasive treatment that uses radiation to destroy inoperable or recurrent brain tumors,according to a release from the hospital. “He offered patients innovative surgical techniques and exceeded medical,social and emotional expectations,” Robert C. Garrett,chief executive of the hospital,said in the release.

Mary was trained as a gynecologist but reportedly stopped practicing to raise their daughter. She did not have a current license to practice,according to the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners website.

The couple’s only child Kaavya gained national attention in high school when she obtained a two-book,$500,000 publishing deal with Little,Brown and Co. That contract was canceled after she was accused of plagiarism in her first book,’How Opal Mehta Got Kissed,Got Wild,and Got a Life’. The book was published while Viswanathan was an undergraduate at Harvard University.