Ajit Pawar Plane Crash: AAIB Seeks Foreign Technical Support To Retrieve Data From Damaged Flight Recorder
According to AAIB, both flight recorders were exposed to intense heat for a prolonged period during the accident and sustained fire damage.
Published : February 17, 2026 at 1:16 PM IST
New Delhi: Aircraft accidents probe agency AAIB on Tuesday (February 17, 2026) said special support has been sought for the retrieval of data from the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the Learjet 45 plane that crashed near Baramati last month.
The AAIB said a detailed and comprehensive probe is underway into the Learjet 45 aircraft crash at Maharashtra's Baramati last month, in full compliance with the Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules, 2017 and international standards laid down under ICAO Annex 13.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and four others were killed in the fatal crash of the VSR Ventures-owned plane on January 28.
In an official statement, AAIB said the aircraft was equipped with two independent flight recorders. Both recorders were exposed to intense heat for a prolonged period during the accident and sustained fire damage, it said. According to AAIB, the Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR), manufactured by L3-Communications, has been successfully downloaded at its Flight Recorder Laboratory.
"The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), manufactured by Honeywell, is undergoing detailed technical examination. Assistance has been sought from the Accredited Representative of the State of Manufacture for specialised support in data retrieval," the probe agency said. In this case, the state of manufacture is the US.
Requesting all stakeholders to avoid speculation, AAIB said it was diligently following all prescribed technical and procedural protocols to ensure a comprehensive, objective and evidence-based investigation.
It also said the investigation was being done strictly in accordance with the Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules, 2017 and the international standards and recommended practices of ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) Annexe 13.
Last week, Union Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu had said that the preliminary report on the crash of the Learjet 45 aircraft VT-SSK would be released soon. (With Agency Inputs)
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