Viswa Vanapalli
In October 2018, Lion Air flight 610 crashed minutes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 189 people on board in a tragic accident. Another airline flying the same model had their flight crash in Ethiopia just months later. The ensuing investigation was centered around Boeing’s culpability in manufacturing faulty aircrafts and the ordeal the victims’ families had to go through. Garima Sethi, the wife of Lion Air flight 610’s Captain Bhavye Suneja, is featured on Netflix’s ‘Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.’ So, let’s find out where she might be today, then, shall we?
Who is Garima Sethi?
Garima grew up in the suburbs of New Delhi, India, and had married Bhavye, a pilot with Lion Air based out of Indonesia, in July 2016. Bhavye had also spent his childhood in India but moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2011. The couple had only been married for about a year and a half before tragedy struck on October 29, 2018. Garima’s day started like any other on that fateful morning. After Bhavye left for work, she expected a call from him a few hours later saying he had landed. However, the call she got told her the plane went missing from the radar mere minutes after takeoff.
The initial investigation showed that the Boeing 737 Max 8 had a faulty sensor resulting in an erroneous reading that said the plane was stalling. The MCAS software kept pushing the aircraft’s nose down while the pilots tried to bring it back up. However, Bhavye and the other officer were not aware of the new software. The plane crashed into the sea immediately after, leading to everyone’s death.
About three months after the crash, Garima urged Lion Air and Indonesian authorities to ground the specific Boeing model until safety concerns were answered. However, at the time, the authorities were satisfied with Boeing’s explanation that the plane was safe and relayed the same message to everyone. In March 2019, another 737 Max 8 crashed minutes after taking off because of issues with the same software.
Garima believed that the second crash would have been prevented if the authorities had listened to their pleas, adding, “We tried to do our part, but nobody heard us.” After the crash, Garima learned from Bhavye’s colleagues that the pilots had not received any training for the new MCAS software and another one of her husband’s flights that had trouble with a faulty sensor.
Where is Garima Sethi Now?
After her husband’s death, Garima moved back to her parents’ home in New Delhi. While she did not go after Boeing legally, she hoped for justice and for people responsible to own up to their mistakes. Garima, who used to work as a chartered accountant, later moved to Australia and got her master’s degree in business information systems. Today, she works as a manager for a company based in Adelaide, Australia.
Read More: Where is John Barnett Now?
