{"id":22999,"date":"2026-01-28T07:53:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T05:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/key-leader-of-indias-maharashtra-among-five-dead-in-air-charter-crash\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:33:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:33:53","slug":"key-leader-of-indias-maharashtra-among-five-dead-in-air-charter-crash","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/key-leader-of-indias-maharashtra-among-five-dead-in-air-charter-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"Key leader of India&#8217;s Maharashtra among five dead in air charter crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Deputy Chief Minister of India&#8217;s wealthiest state of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar, died on Wednesday, along with four people on board, when his charter aircraft went down in flames, the aviation regulator said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Pawar, who hailed from a top political family, was en route to his home region to canvass in local body elections, media said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Two of his staff and two crew were also aboard the Learjet 45 aircraft, the directorate general of civil aviation said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;No person on board has survived,&#8221; it added in an initial statement.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Airplane owner VSR Group, based in New Delhi, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Map showing Baramati, India, with a red marker indicating the approximate air crash site west of Baramati Airport.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>An inset globe highlights India\u2019s location. Text notes the January 28 crash that killed Maharashtra\u2019s Deputy Chief Minister and four others.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Video images showed smoke billowing from some of the burning wreckage of the plane, scattered across an open field.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23000,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-22999","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"India's plane crash","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26109,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22999\/revisions\/26109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=22999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}