Deputy Chief Minister of India's Maharashtra state among five dead in air charter crash

The deputy chief minister of India's wealthiest state of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar, died on Wednesday, along with four other people on board, when his charter aircraft went down in flames, the aviation regulator said.

Pawar, who hailed from a top political family, was en route to his home region to canvass in local body elections, media said.

Two of his staff and two crew were also aboard the VSR Ventures-operated Learjet 45 aircraft, the directorate general of civil aviation said.

"No person on board has survived," it added in an initial statement.

VK Singh, the director of VSR Ventures, told broadcaster India Today that the plane crashed during its approach to the city of Baramati, but the cause was not clear.

"The aircraft is 100% safe," he said. "The crew was fairly experienced."

Video images showed smoke billowing from some of the burning wreckage of the plane, scattered across an open field.

"At first it was on fire, after that there were four or five more explosions," an unidentified witness told the ANI news agency, after seeing the plane crash and explode. But the flames were too fierce to pull anyone out, he added.

Pawar backed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party in the state government, leading a faction that split in 2023 from the opposition Nationalist Congress Party.

In a post on X, Modi said Pawar's death was "shocking and saddening".

Media said Pawar's aircraft, travelling from the financial capital of Mumbai, tried to make an emergency landing in the family stronghold of Baramati, 250 km (155 miles) away, where he was set to canvass in the elections.

Reuters holds a minority stake in ANI.

-Sakshi Dayal/Reuters