How good was the aircraft that crashed, killing Ajit Pawar?
A civil aviation ministry statement said the Learjet 45 aircraft of VSR Ventures, a non-scheduled airline operator, had undergone an airworthiness review as recently as September 2025
VSR Ventures, which runs the chartered-services company VSR Aviation, was in similar territory not so long back. In September 2023, one of the firm’s Learjet 45XR aircraft was involved in a runway excursion as its wheels skidded while landing in Mumbai amidst heavy rain and low visibility.
A preliminary report of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), a government entity, had documented that the aircraft drifted off the runway during landing, triggered ground-proximity warnings and came to rest on an unpaved area after breaking apart, with all occupants surviving with injuries. The episode led to regulatory scrutiny and internal response.
Captain Vijay Kumar Singh, who heads the company, said the focus after the January 28 plane crash in Baramati was on the cause. “We are trying to find out the reasons. We have sent teams to the site [of crash]. The plane was a Learjet and in excellent condition,” Capt. Singh told INDIA TODAY.
When asked the safety protocols in place, he said: “At the moment, allow me to get the work done, please.”
Within hours of the accident, which killed the plane’s two crew members as well, senior VSR Ventures managers and technical personnel were dispatched to the crash site, informed officials familiar with the process. Aircraft documentation, maintenance records and crew files were pulled together and made available to investigators while the company coordinated with local authorities and regulators.
According to a ministry of civil aviation statement, the Learjet 45 aircraft was manufactured in 2010 and had a valid certificate of registration and airworthiness, with the latest review for airworthiness carried out in September 2025. The aircraft had accumulated just under 4,916 hours of total flying time and less than 90 hours since its last airworthiness inspection. The last regulation audit of VSR Ventures by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was done in February 2025 and did not show any level-1 safety violations.
The ministry statement pointed out that Baramati is an ‘uncontrolled’ airfield, where traffic details are made available locally rather than through an air traffic control (ATC) unit, and that the aircraft had performed one go-around on its first approach before being cleared to land on runway 11, seconds before it crashed.
The AAIB director general and officials reached the crash site, with oversight from the DGCA, India’s aviation regulator. A team went to VSR’s Delhi office as well.
Officials emphasised that it was way too early in any crash investigation to draw conclusions about the cause, and that the intent of such probes is always to develop a factual sequence of events and safety lessons rather than attribute blame. Flight data, cockpit voice recordings and air traffic control radio traffic are being secured, but a thorough examination of the plane’s wreckage is expected to take weeks.
VSR Ventures is no fly-by-night operator. Incorporated in 2011, the company runs as a non-scheduled operator, facilitating private jet charters, corporate travel, medical evacuation and special-purpose flights. Corporate filings place Capt. Singh and Rohit Singh as longstanding directors.
According to the DGCA, VSR Ventures holds a valid non-scheduled operator permit, first issued in April 2014 and renewed most recently in April 2023, with validity up to April 2028. The operator currently has 17 fixed-wing aircraft on its register—seven Learjet 45 aircraft, five Embraer 135BJ aircraft, four Beechcraft King Air B200 turboprops and one Pilatus PC-12.
That scale is important because non-scheduled operators, unlike scheduled airlines, operate over a broad variety of airports, weather conditions and mission profiles—frequently doing so on short notice. That, industry insiders say, increases the premium on crew judgement, flight dispatch decision-making and unwavering adherence to operating procedures, especially in approaches to smaller or less-familiar airfields.
“There is usually a human angle to such accidents,” said Capt. R.K. Bali, who heads the Business Aircraft Operators Association. “My own impression is that when companies are not very strict, there is a human angle to accidents, which may not always come up in inquiries.”
Officials are careful to draw a line between the 2023 runway excursion involving a VSR Ventures aircraft and the Baramati crash. The priority for the company now is cooperation; making sure investigators have access to the company's records and personnel; and keeping operations running as its remaining fleet is bound to come under greater scrutiny.
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VSR Ventures, which runs the chartered-services company VSR Aviation, was in similar territory not so long back. In September 2023, one of the firm’s Learjet 45XR aircraft was involved in a runway excursion as its wheels skidded while landing in Mumbai amidst heavy rain and low visibility.
A preliminary report of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), a government entity, had documented that the aircraft drifted off the runway during landing, triggered ground-proximity warnings and came to rest on an unpaved area after breaking apart, with all occupants surviving with injuries. The episode led to regulatory scrutiny and internal response.
Captain Vijay Kumar Singh, who heads the company, said the focus after the January 28 plane crash in Baramati was on the cause. “We are trying to find out the reasons. We have sent teams to the site [of crash]. The plane was a Learjet and in excellent condition,” Capt. Singh told INDIA TODAY.
When asked the safety protocols in place, he said: “At the moment, allow me to get the work done, please.”
Within hours of the accident, which killed the plane’s two crew members as well, senior VSR Ventures managers and technical personnel were dispatched to the crash site, informed officials familiar with the process. Aircraft documentation, maintenance records and crew files were pulled together and made available to investigators while the company coordinated with local authorities and regulators.
According to a ministry of civil aviation statement, the Learjet 45 aircraft was manufactured in 2010 and had a valid certificate of registration and airworthiness, with the latest review for airworthiness carried out in September 2025. The aircraft had accumulated just under 4,916 hours of total flying time and less than 90 hours since its last airworthiness inspection. The last regulation audit of VSR Ventures by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was done in February 2025 and did not show any level-1 safety violations.
The ministry statement pointed out that Baramati is an ‘uncontrolled’ airfield, where traffic details are made available locally rather than through an air traffic control (ATC) unit, and that the aircraft had performed one go-around on its first approach before being cleared to land on runway 11, seconds before it crashed.
The AAIB director general and officials reached the crash site, with oversight from the DGCA, India’s aviation regulator. A team went to VSR’s Delhi office as well.
Officials emphasised that it was way too early in any crash investigation to draw conclusions about the cause, and that the intent of such probes is always to develop a factual sequence of events and safety lessons rather than attribute blame. Flight data, cockpit voice recordings and air traffic control radio traffic are being secured, but a thorough examination of the plane’s wreckage is expected to take weeks.
VSR Ventures is no fly-by-night operator. Incorporated in 2011, the company runs as a non-scheduled operator, facilitating private jet charters, corporate travel, medical evacuation and special-purpose flights. Corporate filings place Capt. Singh and Rohit Singh as longstanding directors.
According to the DGCA, VSR Ventures holds a valid non-scheduled operator permit, first issued in April 2014 and renewed most recently in April 2023, with validity up to April 2028. The operator currently has 17 fixed-wing aircraft on its register—seven Learjet 45 aircraft, five Embraer 135BJ aircraft, four Beechcraft King Air B200 turboprops and one Pilatus PC-12.
That scale is important because non-scheduled operators, unlike scheduled airlines, operate over a broad variety of airports, weather conditions and mission profiles—frequently doing so on short notice. That, industry insiders say, increases the premium on crew judgement, flight dispatch decision-making and unwavering adherence to operating procedures, especially in approaches to smaller or less-familiar airfields.
“There is usually a human angle to such accidents,” said Capt. R.K. Bali, who heads the Business Aircraft Operators Association. “My own impression is that when companies are not very strict, there is a human angle to accidents, which may not always come up in inquiries.”
Officials are careful to draw a line between the 2023 runway excursion involving a VSR Ventures aircraft and the Baramati crash. The priority for the company now is cooperation; making sure investigators have access to the company's records and personnel; and keeping operations running as its remaining fleet is bound to come under greater scrutiny.
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