Baramati: As Sadashiv Raghu headed over to his farm Wednesday morning, he expected it to be just another regular day. His house being close to the Baramati air strip, the occasional sound of a plane landing wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
There was some hustle-bustle near the air strip as Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) workers were preparing to welcome their leader, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, for campaign rallies in Baramati ahead of the 5 February zilla parishad and panchayat samiti polls.
“We know how a plane sounds when it’s landing. This did not sound like that, and before we knew it, there was a loud boom and the land beneath us shook a little,” Raghu said.
Pawar and four others—his personal security officer Vidip Jadhav, flight attendant Pinky Mali, Captain Sumit Kapoor and co-pilot Captain Shambhavi Pathak—were announced dead on the spot. The plane missed the runway and crashed on the side, leading to a massive fire and smoke that engulfed the area.
The plane took off from Mumbai at 8.10 am and was said to have crashed at around 8.50 am.
People living around the crash site said the plane attempted to land on the runway but could not get it right. It then did a go-around before giving it a second try.
The first respondents were the locals who live less than 50 steps from the crash site. While most of the men had left for work, the women were milking the cows and the elders were sitting outside their homes when the plane crashed.
Speaking to ThePrint, Kamla Kailash Atle recalled, “We were doing our morning chores when we heard the loud noise. Flames and smoke quickly took over. We ran there with water and blankets. Two bodies were lying further away from the site. It looked like they were thrown out of the plane during the crash. The fire brigade vehicle reached just 5 minutes after us but nothing could have saved those people.”
She added, “When we reached there we did not know Dada (Ajit Pawar) is one of these people. We were only trying to save the people. We later found out that he was in the same plane. But we could not make out who is who because the faces were all burnt.”
A fire services officer who wished to stay anonymous told ThePrint, “When we reached, the smoke and fire looked like it had subsided, because of the villagers and their initial efforts. It took us 20 minutes to curb the fire.”
Senior forensic officers reached the crash site at 2.30 pm and left after an inspection at 3 pm.
With the people of Baramati, a constituency that Ajit Pawar has represented in the assembly since 1991, overwhelmed, emotional and eager to pay their last respects, the deputy CM’s mortal remains have been moved to the ground at Vidya Pratishthan in Baramati. His last rites will take place on Thursday 11 am.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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