Husband Was Killed in Plane Crash Weeks After Learning Wife Was Pregnant. Now His Family Remembers Him

On Jan. 29, 2025, Vikesh Patel was returning from a business trip, eager to reunite with his pregnant wife, Audrey. Weeks earlier, the couple had learned they were expecting their first child.

But the GE Aerospace executive — a husband, son and brother — never made it home.

Vikesh, 33, was among the 67 people killed when American Airlines Flight 5342, traveling from Wichita, Kan., collided midair with an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C. Officials later said the disaster stemmed from a convergence of worst-case factors.

A year later, the people closest to Vikesh are still learning how to live with his absence.

“I was six weeks pregnant with our first child at the time,” Audrey Patel, 35, tells the outlet. “This year has been incredibly challenging to navigate that without him.”

The couple met while working at GE and later married in April 2024 in a Hindu ceremony. Audrey, who lives in Arlington, Va., and works as a staff engineer at GE Aviation, says life without Vikesh is now measured in moments — some enormous, others heartbreakingly small.

“One of the little things that I think about a lot is how he used to always try to make me laugh so hard,” she says. “Specifically while I was brushing my teeth, so that I would projectile shoot toothpaste on the mirror and the floor before bed.”

Their mornings had a routine: Vikesh always woke up first.

“He would always get up really early, like at least an hour before I did,” Audrey says. “Whenever I would wake up, I would go find him. He was usually at his desk doing something productive, because that’s how he was. And he would stop whatever he was doing to give me a hug and sit with me and do our little good morning.”

Later, Audrey learned the ritual had been planned.

“He told me one day that he actually added it to his calendar as an event when I would wake up,” she says.

Audrey and Vikesh learned they were expecting a baby on Jan. 10, 2025.

“He was incredibly excited to become a dad,” she says. “And so it’s really heartbreaking that he didn’t get the chance to meet our baby.”

Their son — who the family is keeping private — is now 4 months old. Audrey says he has his father’s big brown eyes.

Vikesh’s sister, Dhanisha Patel, also recently gave birth, like Audrey. She says the past year has been filled with joy intertwined with grief.

“It’s been incredibly difficult,” says Dhanisha, who lives in Dallas. She describes her brother as the person her family turned to for nearly everything — “almost to the point where his absence just feels like it’s huge for us.”

“He was almost like my life consultant, whether it be for the kids, with work, with life, anything and everything; he would be the person I go to,” she says.

For their parents, Dipak and Ramila Patel, Dhanisha says the loss has been especially destabilizing.

“They have a business, so anything business-related, health-related, financial-related, everything, he kind of handled,” she explains. “It’s been difficult for my parents to take on something they haven’t had to do in a long time. He just made life easy for all of us.”

The crash killed 60 passengers and four crew members aboard Flight 5342, as well as three soldiers in the helicopter.

“We lost my son, and we miss him every single minute,” Vikesh’s father, Dipak, says. “I miss my son so much.”

Dipak, 65, recalls that Vikesh called multiple times a day — morning, lunchtime and night — “doesn’t matter where he was in the world,” he says, always checking in.

Dhanisha echoes that same sense of constant care.

“He was the most thoughtful person I know that existed,” she says. “Always thinking about everybody else. He always thought about himself last.”

Audrey says her grief has also shaped how she moves forward — guided by one question.

“That I’m trying to carry with me moving forward,” she says, “Ask[ing] myself: What would Vik do?”

And she shares a message she’s holding onto now: “This is an absolute nightmare to live through, to lose our families in such a way. Call your parents, call your siblings. Life is cruelly short sometimes. Spend it with the people you love.”