Congress leader Rahul Gandhi went down memory lane at a photo exhibition on his late father Rajiv Gandhi, a former Prime Minister, as he recalled the passion both shared for aircraft and flying.
A trained pilot, Rahul also remembered Sanjay Gandhi, who died in a plane crash, saying both he and his uncle had flying hours of 300-350 hours. On Sanjay, he said his uncle should not have been flying the plane which crashed as he was not experienced enough to fly that particular aircraft.
His recollections, which were captured on video and released on Thursday, came during his visit to a photo exhibition on Rajiv Gandhi, organised by Youth Congress in the national capital.
As a child, he said, Rahul used to accompany Rajiv on political tours and he used to be on the cockpit. "Generally whenever I was in a plane or helicopter with my dad, I was put into the cockpit. What he’d do is he’d ask me about all the instruments, ask me questions and we’d do the flight check together. So we would walk around the plane and he’d ask me -what’s that?" he said.
He recalls his father telling his younger brother Sanjay not to fly Pitts S-2A, which was a "very aggressive plane". "My father told him that you know, don't do this. My uncle really didn't have the experience. My uncle had similar hours to what I have about 300-350 hours. And, he shouldn’t have been flying that plane. And, he flew it. And that's what happens when you don't have the experience and you fly. It's easy to kill yourself," Rahul said.
Sanjay died on 23 June, 1980 in a plane crash near Safdarjung Airport in Delhi while flying the aircraft of the Delhi Flying Club. He had lost control while performing an aerobatic manoeuvre.
Referring to a photo of an Airbus A320, Rahul said one of Rajiv's "big regrets" was that he left airlines and could not fly the bigger jets.
Rahul also remembered how his mother Sonia Gandhi, the Congress president, used to react on his father's flying planes. "My mother was worried, so every time my father would go on a flight. You know it would be, my mother would have this record playing in the background that he's on a flight. It's so dangerous and she would be worried and she would be transferring that worry. Then once there was some problem with Kashmir and then there was some issue with his aircraft. So my mother I remember getting very worked up," he said.
Asked about how being a pilot trains you for life as a leader, Rahul said pilots have a very particular ability that comes from their training and it is this idea, that you have to move, from a 30,000 foot vision to details in the cockpit.
"If you lose track of details in the cockpit, you run into trouble. And if you lose track of the 30,000 foot picture you, run into trouble. So a pilot, and I am one, we move from these two spaces very seamlessly and very quickly. Pilots also when they fly, their imagination isn't blocked by roads, by railway lines. Their imagination is at 30,000 feet, so they have this ability to see large systems. This is what really helped my father," he said.
"I could see this process taking place where he would go and meet people, get into their details, understand their details and then instantly move to 30,000-40,000-50,000 feet and look at the big picture. His work was constantly moving between these two perspectives and always understanding that imagination can bridge anything so that to me was a very powerful thing that my father had," he added.