New Delhi: Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar died after his plane crashed in Baramati on Wednesday morning, the Directorate General of Civil
Aviation (DGCA) confirmed. His wife Sunetra Pawar and his sister Supriya Sule are reportedly heading to Baramati. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah spoke to Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to get details and updates on the situation.
Other similar airplane deaths
The death of a major Indian politician due to an airplane crash is not new. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose is perhaps the first Indian politician who reportedly died in a plane crash on 18 August 1945 in present day Taiwan, an event whose historical veracity still remains contested till this day.
Another stalwart of Indian politics who lost his life to an air crash was Sanjay Gandhi, a member of the Lok Sabha and was the younger son of Indira Gandhi and Feroze Gandhi. Gandhi was just 34 when he was killed when a small plane he was flying crashed soon after taking off from the Safdarjung airport in Delhi on June 23, 1980. The plane crashed near Teen Murti house.
Senior Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia, himself a former Civil Aviation Minister, was also killed in a Cessna aircraft crash on September 30, 2001. This happened while he was travelling to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh to address a public rally. Former Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP leader Vijay Rupani is another recent example of an airplane crash death of a major Indian politician. The BJP leader died on 12 June 2025 in the crash involving Air India Flight 171 that took off just after take off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad for London-Gatwick in the United Kingdom.
The sitting Chief Ministers who died in plane crashes are Dorjee Khandu of Arunachal Pradesh in 2011 and Y S Rajasekhara Reddy of undivided Andhra Pradesh in 2009.
Other prominent figures
India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, tragically died in a helicopter crash on December 8, 2021. The incident occurred near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu while he was en route from Sulur to Wellington. Eminent scientist Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha met a similar fate when he died in a tragic crash aboard Air India Flight 101 on January 24, 1966. Industrialist and Haryana minister Om Prakash Jindal, also lost his life in a helicopter crash in 2005.
