Victims of Baramati tragedy | Family and friends say farewell to Delhi pilots: ‘Fun-loving’ Capt Kapur, ‘lively’ Shambhavi

Among those attending were his childhood friends Naresh Taneja and G S Grover, who recalled the last conversation they had with Kapur before he left for Baramati.

Taneja had a short banter-filled text exchange with Kapur. “It’s one of those conversations, you know, just jokes… then I saw the news and immediately called his family because he had told me he was going to Baramati. They had just received the news… what do you even tell them at that point?” he said.

“We grew up as neighbours,” said Taneja. “Our friendship spans back over 50 years.”

Grover said he hadn’t slept since receiving the news. “I last spoke to him two-three days ago. He looked at me and said I had put on weight… He was such a happy-go-lucky chap. Whenever he would see us, he would call us for a cup of tea.”

Kapur’s colleagues said that initially, he was not the pilot assigned on the Baramati flight. “Chartered flights are such. When a pilot is on standby, he can expect a call any time, asking him to come over. It’s neither new nor surprising that the roster was changed at the last minute,” said Capt Malik, Kapur’s colleague from VSR Aviation.

A former colleague said Kapur was one of the best in the industry. “Sumit was so fun-loving, so jovial, always ready to crack a joke,” he said. “And Shambhavi… she was just a little child. I knew her father as well. She was not much older than my daughter… I would pull her leg and ask her when will I hear her wedding bells…”

Pathak, he added, was just months away from getting her Airline Transport Pilot License (ATPL), which would make her qualified to become a captain of a commercial air transport. “All her paperwork was done. I am sure she would have got the license. She was very sharp.”

At the Lodhi Garden crematorium, members from the Air Force fraternity, Pathak’s juniors in school, friends and family gathered for her final rites.

“She was very lively,” said one of her juniors in school. A childhood friend from school said, “She was the happiest person you would know… she always wanted to be a pilot. Her father was in the Air Force, so it’s natural that she wanted to follow in his footsteps.”

Pathak’s mother, a teacher at the Air Force Bal Bharati School, remained inconsolable, relatives said. Her father, a retired pilot who had rushed to Pune following news of the crash, returned to Delhi for the final rites.

Back at Punjabi Bagh, Kapur’s younger brother, Varun, had few words to share. “I will just say this — I wish to meet him as my brother in my next life as well.”