Ajit Pawar's death | ‘Plane spun before crash’: Eyewitness recounts moments before Baramati aircraft crash

An eyewitness who was working in the fields during the time of the plane crash in Baramati said that the plane was about to land at the airport before it rose up again.

The woman said that parts of the plane flew all the way to her house.

“The plane was landing at the airport, but suddenly rose upto the sky again. It circled two or three times in the air and then crashed down rapidly. As soon as it hit the ground, the plane exploded. The iron parts and debris flew so hard that they reached the roof of our house,” she said.

The private VSR plane carrying Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and 5 other passengers crashed into a field near Barmati airport at around 8:50 am, killing all of its passengers.

The passengers included Videep Jadhav, Captain Sumit Kapoor, Captain Sambhi Pathak and Pinky Mali.

Another person who saw the incident said that the following the crash, the plane burst into flames, followed by four to five blasts. The man who spoke to ANI said, “I saw it with my eyes. This is really painful. When the aircraft descended, it seemed it would crash, and it did crash. It then exploded. There was a massive explosion.After that, we rushed here and saw that the aircraft was on fire. There were 4-5 explosions in the aircraft again. More people came here, and they tried to pull the people out (of the aircraft). But since this was a huge fire, people could not help. Ajit Pawar was onboard and this is really painful for us. I can't describe it in words The plane crashed about 100 feet away from the track.”

One woman who lives in the area recounted the scene right after the crash. "They tried to extinguish the fire. After 15 minutes, they could douse the fire and when we went near, we saw a headless body lying there. It was completely burned and swollen. We could not identify it, but later, with the help of something in the hand, it was identified that it was the body of Dada (Ajit Pawar). Police team came to us and asked for water. We gave them, and they also asked for clothes to cover it, so we gave a new blanket from our house."

The flight had taken off from Mumbai at around 8:10 am, and it disappeared from the radar around 8:45 am. Ajit Pawar was travelling to Baramati to address public meetings as part of the campaign for the February 5, zilla parishad elections in the state.