MUMBAI: India’s Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar was killed on Wednesday morning when a chartered aircraft carrying him crashed while attempting an emergency landing near Baramati, Indian media reported. Four other people on board, including two pilots and security personnel, also lost their lives.
According to initial reports, the privately operated plane had departed from Mumbai and was heading to Baramati, the Pawar family’s political stronghold, where the senior politician was scheduled to campaign ahead of elections. The aircraft went down near the threshold of a runway and burst into flames, leaving no survivors.
India’s civil aviation authority confirmed that two crew members and two staffers of Pawar were among those on board. Visuals circulating on local media showed burning wreckage scattered across an open field, with thick smoke rising from the crash site.
The deceased were identified as pilots Sumit Kapur and Shambhavi Pathak, along with Pawar’s security staffer Vidhit Jadhav.
Ajit Pawar headed a faction of the Nationalist Congress Party that aligned with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra’s state government following a political split in 2023.
The crash comes amid renewed concern over aviation safety in India after a series of recent fatal incidents, including last year’s Air India Dreamliner disaster in Ahmedabad that killed 260 people.