A plane carrying Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister, Ajit Pawar, crashed while attempting to land in Baramati, Pune district, on Wednesday morning, killing the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and four others onboard, confirmed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
Pawar’s wife and sons rushed to Baramati as soon as reports of the crash emerged.
Kiran Gujar, close aid of Pawar in Baramati, also confirmed from the local hospital that “all five people including Ajit Pawar were brought dead”.
The mishap happened at around 8.45 am when Pawar, along with four others (including a PSO, an attendant and two crew members), boarded the chartered plane from Mumbai, Maharashtra, to Baramati, Pawar’s hometown, where he was due to address four public meetings ahead of the Zila Parishad polls.
According to DGCA, the crash landing of the Mumbai-Baramati charter plane occurred at the runway threshold in Baramati. Airport manager, Shivaji Taware, told the press that the aircraft (VT SSK) was a Learjet 45 that was attempting a landing when it slid off the runway and crashed.
Videos showed billows of smoke rising from the burning wreckage of the plane that’s scattered across the open field. Some eyewitnesses also said the chartered aircraft had gone down in flames.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared a post on X to condole Pawar’s tragic demise, and remembered him as a leader with strong grassroots connect. The PM said Pawar’s understanding of administrative matters and passion for empowering the poor was worth noting.
On Tuesday, Pawar had attended a meeting of the Maharashtra Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure in Mumbai, which was chaired by CM Devendra Fadnavis. Maharashtra Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule and others had also attended the meeting.
Ajit Pawar was the longest serving deputy chief minister of Maharashtra non-consecutively, having served in the position for six terms within various governments, including in the cabinets of Prithviraj Chavan, Devendra Fadnavis, Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde.
In 1982, Pawar began his political career after being elected to the board of a cooperative sugar factory. In 1991, he was elected as the chairman of the Pune District Central Cooperative Bank. In the same year, Pawar was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time from the Baramati Parliamentary constituency. He later vacated the seat for his uncle, Sharad Pawar.
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He won the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly by-election seven times from the Baramati Assembly constituency in 1991, 1995, 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014.
In November 2019, Pawar engineered a split in the NCP and joined a government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party to become the Deputy Chief Minister. In February 2024, the Election Commission awarded the party name and symbol to the faction headed by Ajit Pawar.
In early January 2026, Pawar announced that differences within the Pawar family and the two NCP factions had been resolved, followed by both sides contesting the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad civic polls jointly. He shared a stage with Supriya Sule, working president of the NCP and daughter of Sharad Pawar, for the first time since the 2023 split.
Young pilots lose their lives
Among the victims was Shambhavi Pathak, a trained pilot. She completed her secondary education at Air Force Bal Bharati School (2016–2018) and pursued commercial pilot training at the New Zealand International Commercial Pilot Academy. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautics, Aviation, and Aerospace Science and Technology from the University of Mumbai.
She also worked as an Assistant Flying Instructor at the Madhya Pradesh Flying Club. The other pilot, Captain Sumit Kapoor, had over 16,000 hours of flying experience.
Poor visibility cause of crash?
Union Aviation Minister K Ram Mohan Naidu on Wednesday said according to preliminary information, visibility at the Baramati airport was poor when the aircraft crashed. "Teams from the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) and AAIB (Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau) have arrived to carry out a probe into the accident. Preliminary information suggests that visibility was poor at the time the aircraft was attempting to land," said Naidu.
When ATC Baramati asked the pilot whether the runway was in sight, the response was negative, following which the aircraft executed a go-around, he said. During the second landing attempt, ATC again asked whether the runway was in sight, to which the pilot responded in the affirmative, the minister said. After the ATC granted landing clearance, the aircraft crashed, Naidu said, adding, "We are seeking more details and will conduct the investigation in a transparent manner."
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