Baramati: In a new revelation in the Ajit Pawar plane crash, it has emerged that Captain Sumit Kapoor, who was among the five victims, was not originally scheduled to fly the aircraft. Kapoor filled in for another pilot who got stuck in traffic, NDTV reported, quoting the deceased pilot’s friends.
Kapoor had returned from Hong Kong a few days earlier and received orders to fly the aircraft with Ajit Pawar to Baramati just a few hours before the tragic incident, his friends said.
Kapoor was scheduled to fly Pawar from Mumbai to his constituency of Baramati for election rallies for local polls. At around 8 am, Kapoor took off in a Learjet 45 operated by Delhi-based company VSR Ventures, with Pawar and three others on board.
The crash occurred at around 8:45 am while the aircraft was attempting a second approach to Baramati Airport. All five people on board, including Kapoor, his co-pilot Captain Shambhavi Pathak, flight attendant Pinky Mali, and Pawar’s security guard Vidip Jadhav, died in the crash.
Pawar was laid to rest at the Vidya Pratishthan Grounds in Baramati on Thursday.
The final rites were performed by his sons, Parth and Jay Pawar, in the presence of his wife, Sunetra Pawar, and other members of the Pawar family.
The funeral, conducted with full state honours, saw a massive outpouring of grief as tens of thousands of supporters from across the state descended on his home turf of Baramati. The town, which served as both the cradle and the bastion of his four-decade political career, came to a virtual standstill.
