CCTV Footage Shows Moment Ajit Pawar's Plane Crashed, Burst Into Flames

The clock struck 8.46:02 Wednesday morning when a fireball and a massive plume of smoke was caught on a CCTV feed from a highway minutes from the airport in Maharashtra's Baramati.

A plane carrying Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and four others had just crashed.

Ajit Pawar, 66, died in that crash and the highway camera caught the moment his Learjet 45 exploded.

The private jet, which left Mumbai at 8.10 am, crashed trying to land.

CCTV Footage Shows Moment Ajit Pawar's Plane Crashed, Burst Into Flames https://t.co/QIhkS2HAJj@vedikas @padmajajoshi @shivaroor pic.twitter.com/GtNYC5Wn8k

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Visuals from the spot showed fire and smoke and the mangled remains of the plane, as emergency services personnel and horrified locals gathered, each trying to process the unreal event and help. Shortly afterwards came the confirmation – all five on board had died.

The flight was operated by a company called VSR.

READ | Ajit Pawar Dies In Plane Crash: What We Know About The Aircraft

Data from Flightradar24 said the plane blipped off radar at 8.45 am and that it was attempting a second landing when it crashed; an eyewitness said it crashed 100 feet before the runway.

READ | Pawar's Plane Was Attempting 2nd Approach To Airport When It Crashed

"When the aircraft descended, it seemed it would crash… and it did. It then exploded and burst into a massive fire and four or five more explosions followed," the man said. "People came and tried to pull out passengers from the aircraft. Due to the huge fire, they could not help…"

READ | Ajit Pawar Death: Eyewitness Describes Moment Plane Crashed

The Learjet 45, which can carry as many as nine passengers, stopped broadcasting at 8.34 am, resumed minutes later, and then, at 8.43 am, went silent again. The place where the jet stopped signalling for the second time is around 20 km from the airport at which it was to land.

Data available at this time suggests the aircraft was flying at an altitude of 1016 metres, or more than a kilometre, and at 237 kilometres per hour when it lost contact with flight tracking services.

Pawar was the longest, non-consecutively-serving Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, having held the post six times. He worked twice with the Congress' Prithviraj Chavan and Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP, and once each with Shiv Sena leaders Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde. The dream of becoming chief minister himself, tragically, remains unfulfilled.