Pilot Shambhavi Pathak's Last Message To Grandmother Before Fatal Baramati Crash

"Hi, good morning, Dadda." That was the last message Captain Shambhavi Pathak ever sent. A few minutes later, her grandmother Meera Pathak replied softly, as she always did, "Good morning, Chini." She did not know then that this simple exchange, sent at around 6:30 am, would become a memory she would hold on to for the rest of her life. On Wednesday morning at 8:45 am, a plane crashed at Baramati Airport in Maharashtra. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, along with four others, lost their lives in the accident. Among them was Captain Shambhavi Pathak, a young pilot from Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. By the time the news reached her grandmother, the phone that had carried that tender message had fallen silent forever. Meera Pathak lives alone in house number D-61, Basant Vihar, Gwalior. Her family has shifted to Delhi, but her memories remain rooted in this house, memories filled with a little girl everyone lovingly called Chini. On Wednesday morning, Meera Pathak sat staring at her phone, tears rolling down her face. "I didn't know this was the last message," she said, her voice breaking. The grieving grandmother recalled the moment she sensed something was wrong. "My eldest son told me there had been a plane crash. Last night, I had even asked him on the phone, 'Where is Chini?' She mostly lived in Mumbai. She didn't call me often. She didn't even message me usually. I don't know how she remembered me today."