The saddest day at Clemson 2001-2003

 8th January 2003 was as normal day as any just before the start of my last semester at Clemson. A little more enthusiasm than normal as my roommate Harshu was supposed to return from India with a boatload of food so dearly missed. I was busy in finalizing my G2, G4 forms which I had incorrectly filled towards the end of the 3rd semester and needed to be corrected in the first week of the Spring semester.

Somewhere during my meandering inside Riggs Hall I saw an unusual hustle outside Prof Singh's office. As first I assumed it was a rush to get his signature on forms for those pursuing MSEE in VLSI. As I passed saw a few worried faces and some others indicated something far worse.

A plane bound for Greenville Spartanburg airport had crashed and it had 2 Indian students on board. I felt my heart miss several beats before looked for familiar faces and more details. Turned out that a flight from Charlotte to GSP had crashed on takeoff and that there were no survivors. Let out a long gasp out of a slight relief in that Harshu was surely traveling from a different airport. Just then Bollya who was the CISA president confirmed to me that he had spoken with Harshu a while back and that he had yet to board.

Just then couple of folks confirmed the two unfortunate souls onboard that ill-fated flight were Ganeshram Srinivasan and Srinivasa Badam Reddy.

Ganesh, fondly known as Gas (for very very obvious reasons), lived about 10 doors from our place in Village Green. One of the many from Computer Science program with a 4.0 and a nice guy overall. During the 3 semesters prior had played cards, chess and cricket near the dumpsters on umpteenth occasions. Several dinners and movie binges at our place and several nods while passing by.

Srinivasa Badam Reddy, who I called by generic name Reddy stayed at 807 Le Mans and was a CS student too. However both of us worked couple of common shifts during our first semester at Lil Dinos, a subs place, at the Hendrix Center. He had arrived from the humblest of backgrounds based on what he had told me during our decently long shifts. Also a 4.0 student with the most genuine of smiles you could find. Not sure if his one major wish of visiting Tiger Tails, an exotic erotic dance club, was fulfilled :)

The crash was attributed to an incorrect loading of baggage which led to stalling of the aircraft on takeoff. Incident is detailed in a National Geographic episode of aircraft investigation with title "Deadweight".

Remember attending a funeral at a crematorium at Charlotte for Gas and meeting one of his cousins who was in the US at the time. The airline had arranged for a bus from Clemson for a few that provided a mini outlet or closure of sorts.

Both were conferred with their Masters Degrees during Spring 2003 graduation in May. Ganesh's parents and his sister and nephew were in attendance who visited and stayed with his roommates for a few days. Euphoria for new graduates and somber moment for some others..