'After dropping Ajit Pawar, I’ll speak to you': Flight attendant Pinky Mali’s father recounts her final promise

• Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar died in Baramati plane crash with four others
• Flight attendant Pinky Mali was among the victims; her father mourns her loss
• Co-pilot Shambhavi Pathak and police naik Vidip Jadhav also died in the crash

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His voice filled with emotion and his eyes welling up, a distraught Shivkumar Mali said his daughter had promised to speak to him “tomorrow”, but that moment will never come.

His daughter Pinky Mali was among those killed in the Baramati plane crash that also claimed the life of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

“Pappa, I am flying to Baramati tomorrow (Wednesday) with DCM Ajit Pawar. After dropping him, I will go to Nanded and will speak to you once I reach the hotel…” Shivkumar, a resident of Prabhadevi in Central Mumbai, said, recounting his last conversation with his daughter.

Pinky was an attendant on the Learjet 46, operated by Delhi-based VSR Ventures, that crash-landed at the Baramati airport. There were five people onboard, including the crew members, according to the aviation regulator DGCA.

She had flown with the President, chief ministers and several political leaders, Shivkumar said, adding that she was flying with Ajit Pawar for the fourth time, according to her father.

“I spoke to her last evening, and she told me that she would be going to Baramati with Deputy CM Ajit Pawar and would then proceed to Nanded. I told her ‘let us speak tomorrow after your duty’. But that tomorrow will never come,” said Shivkumar, his eyes moist.

The father, who is also an activist of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) that Pawar headed, said a local politician named Samadhan Sarvankar informed him about Ajit Pawar’s plane crash.

“I switched on the television. The news left me shocked,” he said.

The father and daughter had last met on January 16, when Pinky visited Prabhadevi from Thane to cast her vote in the civic polls. Shivkumar said they spoke frequently.

Pinky had been working as a flight attendant for the last five years. She started with Air India and moved to private chartered flights after a couple of years, he said.

“During a recent flight with Ajit Pawar, my daughter complained to him that he was travelling across Maharashtra but was not paying attention to NCP activists. When Pawar asked her why she felt so, Pinky told him that I have been an NCP worker for 35 years,” Shivkumar said, adding the interaction had elicited a call from the deputy CM’s side.

“As I was driving a car, the call went unanswered. Then I got a message that Pawar wanted to speak to me,” he said. Even that call will never happen, he added.

After learning about the accident, Shivkumar and his family rushed to Baramati.

Besides Pawar and Pinky, the other victims have been identified as Vidip Jadhav, Captain Shambhavi Pathak and Captain Sumit Kapur.

Vidip Jadhav, a police naik attached to the Special Protection Unit of the Mumbai police, had taken off with Pawar and others from Kalina on Wednesday morning. A resident of Vitava near Thane, he is survived by his wife, son and mother. His family also headed for Baramati after being informed about the tragedy.

Captain Shambhavi Pathak was the co-pilot on the Learjet 46. According to her social media profile, she had been with VSR Ventures for the past three years. It says she received commercial pilot training in 2018-19 at the New Zealand International Commercial Pilot Academy Limited. Earlier, she studied Aeronautics, Aviation, Aerospace Science and Technology from Mumbai University between 2020 and 2022.