5 min readNew DelhiFeb 13, 2026 08:10 PM IST
The preliminary report on the Learjet 45 crash that claimed the lives of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and four others on January 28 is expected to be released “very soon” by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said Friday.
“Very soon we will have the preliminary report of the investigation,” Naidu said. On January 30, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) had said that the investigation into the fatal crash in Baramati was “progressing expeditiously” and that the ill-fated aircraft’s black box—cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder—had been recovered.
The aircraft involved in the accident was a 15-year-old Learjet 45 bearing registration VT-SSK, operated by charter operator VSR Ventures. It took off from Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport at around 8:10 am and disappeared from the radar at about 8:45 am, as per the flight tracking data. According to preliminary information provided by the government, the plane had crashed at around 8:44 am. The flight path shows the aircraft making a loop to line up with the runway as it prepared to land at the Baramati airport, before crashing close to the runway. Along with Pawar, there were four others on board the aircraft—Pawar’s personal security officer, one flight attendant, and two pilots.
Earlier this week, Ajit Pawar’s nephew Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar alleged the possibility of a conspiracy and sabotage in the January 28 plane crash, and demanded that that an independent international agency such as the US National Transportation Safety Board, France’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, or the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch be asked to investigate the crash. As per India’s aircraft investigation rules, aircraft accidents and serious incidents are probed by the AAIB.
Rohit Pawar also levelled allegations of negligence, regulatory failures, and operational and crew irregularities against Delhi-based VSR Ventures. A special audit of VSR Ventures is already under way by a six-member team appointed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The DGCA is also undertaking audits of all non-scheduled aircraft operators in the country in two phases in the wake of the January 28 crash.
According to guidelines from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), investigators should release a preliminary report within 30 days of an air accident, although Indian aviation experts say that the country’s aircraft accident investigation rules have no such mandate and India is not bound to stick to the 30-day timeline for the preliminary report. Nevertheless, the initial report is expected soon, given the significance of the accident, sources indicated.
It is, however, not clear how detailed the report itself would be at this stage. AAIB’s preliminary reports in the past have mostly been limited to laying down the facts about the aircraft and crew, establishing the series of events leading to the accident, providing some basic analysis of the aircraft accident debris and site, and listing the steps taken so far in the investigation.
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Most of the AAIB’s preliminary investigation reports reviewed by The Indian Express were four-five page reports divided into the following sections—general information, aircraft information, crew information, aerodrome information, weather information, brief description of the accident, wreckage and impact information, gathering of evidence, progress of the investigation, and interim recommendations, if any. They were mostly inconclusive, and limited to establishing the facts about the accident and the progress of the probe.
Initial information from the crash site indicated that low visibility conditions in the area might have played a role in the accident. On the day of the crash, VSR’s Director Vijay Kumar Singh also said that it appeared that the pilots faced visibility issues. The Learjet 45 is a mid-size business jet aircraft manufactured by Canada’s Bombardier Aerospace, with around 640 such planes built during its manufacturing run between 1995 and 2012. According to the DGCA database, the VSR had a fleet of 17 aircraft, including the one that crashed.
The Baramati airport is a regional airstrip used primarily for pilot training and private plane operations, and does not have navigational aids to help pilots operate during low visibility. They are required to land by visually navigating to the airport in the absence of navigational aids, which can be challenging if visibility is poor. Also, Baramati is an uncontrolled airfield, which means that pilots operate there visually by avoiding other aircraft and maintaining self-separation, and use radio communication to operate at such airports. At the Baramati airport, traffic information is provided by the instructors or pilots from the flying schools there.
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