Learjet 45 crash-landing exposes gap: Baramati airport has no ATC or fire tender; India has 150 such airports

The Ministry of Civil Aviation said AAIB and DGCA teams reached the Baramati crash site, recovered the black box and launched a time-bound probe after Deputy CM Ajit Pawar’s death.

• Ajit Pawar's Learjet crash-lands at Baramati airport lacking key safety features
• Baramati airport has no official ATC, fire tender, or navigational aids
• Pilot cadets handle ATC; runway has a hump and no guiding lights for safe landing

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A routine VIP landing at a small-town airport in Maharashtra has cast a harsh light on the stark infrastructural gaps at India's lesser-known airstrips.

A Learjet 45 carrying Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and four others crash-landed on Wednesday. The incident occurred at the airport in Baramati, a political stronghold of the Nationalist Congress Party. According to an HT report, the airport operated without basic navigational aids, a dedicated fire tender or a professional air traffic control service.

The facility, constructed by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and inaugurated in 1996, is categorised as an uncontrolled ‘Category A’ airport, meaning it has no official air traffic control service.

According to aviation expert and DGCA-approved examiner Mihir Bhagvati, India has approximately 150 such airports, possessing only a basic runway.

Remarkably, the ATC function at Baramati is managed not by licensed air traffic controllers, but by pilot cadets from two local private flying schools — Redbird Aviation and Carver Aviation — who staff the facility on alternating days. Pramesh Parikh, the accountable manager for Carver Aviation, reportedly confirmed that due to the VIP movement, a flight instructor from his academy was manning the tower, as it was their scheduled turn.

The airport also lacks independent meteorological facilities, relying instead on weather data piped in from Pune airport, nearly 100 kilometres away. Personnel managing the ATC on Wednesday morning, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the area was shrouded in dense fog with visibility around 3,000 metres at the time of the incident.

Sanjay Karve, who retired last year as Maharashtra’s aviation director, provided a damning assessment of the site’s shortcomings. He confirmed the airport has no ground-based navigational beacons, such as a VOR and no Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI) lights to guide a pilot’s descent angle. Karve also highlighted a peculiar feature of the 30-metre wide runway — a shallow hump that can distort a pilot’s visual perception. In his view, the strip is unsuitable for VIP operations.

While a 30-metre width is generally adequate for business jets and turboprops, the absence of guiding instrumentation in poor weather significantly elevates risk.

Captain Naufil Karnalkar, a former Baramati flying instructor now with Qatar Airways, corroborated these concerns, was cited by HT as saying that the poor visibility was compounded by the lack of navigational aids and that the runway surface itself required smoothing by authorities.

In a critical revelation, airport incharge Shivaji Taware admitted the airport did not possess its own fire tender. A single vehicle was placed on standby from the Baramati Municipal Council for the VIP landing. Once the crash occurred, additional tenders had to be summoned from the local council and the MIDC. An ambulance was, however, on standby.

The airport, which primarily services the two flying schools and sees only four to five weekly movements from other airports, was until recently under private management. Taware stated that the Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Airport Developers managed the facility until August 19, 2025, when the state government took over due to several operational lacunae.

A spokesperson for the Anil Ambani-led group confirmed that five airports in Maharashtra, including Baramati, had been handed back to the state government.

Ironically, Taware noted that Ajit Pawar, in his capacity as the guardian minister for Pune district, had personally chaired multiple meetings in recent months to upgrade the Baramati airport, specifically requesting the installation of PAPI lights, night-landing facilities and a regular ATC service.