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Sweet, friendly: Delhi remembers pilot Pathak

Shambhavi was one of the pilots of the chartered aircraft that crashed on Wednesday morning, killing everyone on board, including Ajit Pawar, the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

Delhi remembers pilot Pathak, Shambhavi Pathak, ajit pawar plane crash, baramati, Ajit Pawar, ajit pawar, ajit pawar plane crash news, ajit pawar plane details, ajit pawar plane route, flight tracker, ajit pawar baramati flightThe crash site in Baramati where DCM Ajit Pawar and 6 others killed in a flight craft on Wednesday. (Express photographs by Arul Horizon)

Shambhavi Pathak and her family were different from most people — they were friendly, cheerful folk who seemed to care about their neighbours, 62-year-old Meenu Walia, who lived close to the Pathaks in South Delhi’s Safdarjung Enclave, told The Indian Express on Wednesday.

“Shambhavi would always greet me whenever she met me on the street. She was such a sweet girl,” Walia said.

Shambhavi was one of the pilots of the chartered aircraft that crashed on Wednesday morning, killing everyone on board, including Ajit Pawar, the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

Walia said the Pathaks were her neighbours for two years before moving to another house in the same neighbourhood just a couple of days earlier. No member of the family wanted to speak with reporters on Wednesday.

The Bombardier Learjet 45 that went down in Baramati was operated by private jet charter operator VSR Ventures (VSR Aviation). According to Shambhavi’s Linkedin profile, she had been working at the company for the past three and half years as First Officer on the Learjet 45.

The Linkedin profile says Shambhavi completed her high school from Air Force Bal Bharti School in 2018 and then trained at the New Zealand International Commercial Pilot Academy.

She also served as an Assistant Flight Instructor at the Madhya Pradesh Flying Club and studied for two years at the University of Mumbai for a B.Sc in Aviation. In some colleges, the three-year degree is reduced to two years for holders of Commercial Pilot Licences (CPL).

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The 15-year-old aircraft bearing registration VT-SSK took off from Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport around 8.10 am and disappeared from the radar at 8.45 am, as per flight tracking data from Flightradar24. The flight path shows the aircraft made a loop to line up with the runway, before disappearing from the flight tracker.

Besides Pawar and Shambhavi, three others died in the crash – pilot Sumit Kapoor, Pawar’s personal security officer, and a flight attendant.

Devansh Mittal is a Correspondent at The Indian Express, based in the New Delhi City bureau. He reports on urban policy, civic governance, and infrastructure in the National Capital Region, with a growing focus on housing, land policy, transport, and the disruption economy and its social implications. Professional Background Education: He studied Political Science at Ashoka University. Core Beats: His reporting focuses on policy and governance in the National Capital Region, one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world. He covers housing and land policy, municipal governance, urban transport, and the interface between infrastructure, regulation, and everyday life in the city. Recent Notable Work His recent reporting includes in-depth examinations of urban policy and its on-ground consequences: An investigation into subvention-linked home loans that documented how homebuyers were drawn into under-construction projects through a “builder–bank” nexus, often leaving them financially exposed when delivery stalled. A detailed report on why Delhi’s land-pooling policy has remained stalled since 2007, tracing how fragmented land ownership, policy design flaws, and mistrust among stakeholders have kept one of the capital’s flagship urban reforms in limbo. A reported piece examining the collapse of an electric mobility startup and what it meant for women drivers dependent on the platform for livelihoods. Reporting Approach Devansh’s work combines on-ground reporting with analysis of government data, court records, and academic research. He regularly reports from neighbourhoods, government offices, and courtrooms to explain how decisions on housing, transport, and the disruption economy shape everyday life in the city. Contact X (Twitter): @devanshmittal_ Email: devansh.mittal@expressindia.com ... Read More

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