Indian American retiree flying solo around the world for hospital in India

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NEW YORK – In his Cessna 400, Indian American Ravi Bansal, a retired entrepreneur from Buffalo, New York, and a wannabe drummer who has a Ph.D., is flying around the world to raise awareness for cancer and collect his ultimate goal of $750,000 to buy an MRI machine for the ‘Rotary Ambala Cancer and General Hospital’ in Ambala Cantonment, India.

Founded in 2005, the Rotary Ambala Cancer and General Hospital, had only one employee – a nurse who went from door to door in the poorest communities of the city to raise the awareness of cancer.

With its goal of bringing free healthcare to the poor and underserved community, the hospital has grown to a building of 100 beds thanks to the support of the Rotarians and citizens of Ambala. However, it still needs one major diagnostic piece of equipment: an MRI Machine which costs $750,000 and Bansal is willing to collect as much for them by flying around the world in his private plane.

“This mission for me is very personal as it not only is an adventure that I have been dreaming about for a while, but will also help bring awareness about cancer in the rural community around Ambala and get the hospital a needed MRI machine now,” said Bansal on his website (http://raviworldflight.com/)

“Above all, it will generate publicity for the hospital that will hopefully continue to bring donations/support from the local and international community and Rotarians to keep the hospital operating and growing in future,” he added.

Now a retiree, Bansal was the co-founder, Chairman of the Board and CEO of AirSep Corporation in Buffalo, New York and he studied in the field of Mechanical Engineering; earning his Masters from Arizona State University and his Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology.

Bansal started his around the world journey in Buffalo, on March 30, from where he went to Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, England, France, Italy, Greece, Jordan, UAE, Oman and is now currently in Ahmedabad, India.

From here he will go to Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan, Russia, Alaska and will return back through Canada from there; he will fly a total of 19,878 NM and 116.9 hours.

Bansal has already collected $80,898 and is accepting donations from all over the world.

One can donate $200 which is 1 cent/mile of flight, $1,000 which is 5 cents/mile of flight, $2,000 which is 10 cents/mile of flight or any other amount they please.

So far Bansal has received 115 donations with the largest contributions from:

Name(s) Amount
Rohan & Nitin Bansal $10,000
Bharat & Pallavi Jain $5,000
Karen & Abhi Jain $5,000
Joseph & Pam Priest $5,000
Ashoo & Rajesh Sharda $5,000
Robert Wilmers $5,000
Raman & Ritu Sood $2,500
Vijay & Asha Kumar $2,500
Sudhakar & Padma Perala $2,000
Donald White $2,000
Shakeel Ahmad & Manju Celony $2,000
Prem & Lata Maheshwari $1,100
Harbinder & Liveleen Gill $1,000
Philip Thomas $1,000
Shyam & Sarmishtha Kumar $1,000
Prem & Indra Tambar $1,000
Stephen Vozella $1,000
Lawrence & Colleen Hughes $1,000
Sargur & Rohini Srihari $1,000
Lee Kuang Han $1,000
Harkishan Jassal $1,000
Sanjay & Sadhna Gupta $1,000
Romesh & Neelam Kohli $1,000
Mary McLean Wilson $1,000
Lalit & Sandy Goel $1,000
Yashodhar Punati & Umadevi Nuthi $1,000
Shail Chokhavatia $1,000
Aneel Kaur $1,000

(This post was updated on July 20, 2017)