Gondia, February 18 NCP leader Praful Patel said on Wednesday that the aviation company appears to be primarily responsible for the Baramati plane crash that killed Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, and there could be negligence on the part of the pilot.
He, however, said that all things will come to light in the investigation.
Pawar and four others were killed after the Learjet 45 aircraft owned by VSR Ventures crashed near the Baramati airstrip on January 28.
"Primarily, in my opinion, the aviation company seems to be primarily responsible for the unfortunate incident that claimed the life of Deputy CM Ajitdada Pawar. Facts will come to the fore in the CBI investigation. There may be negligence on the part of the pilot...All these things will come to light in the investigation," Patel, a former Union civil aviation minister, told reporters at his residence here.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) on Tuesday said that special support has been sought for the retrieval of data from the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the Learjet 45 plane involved in the fatal crash.
"Surely, America has better technical expertise, wherein they may be able to decode the damaged black box. CBI is an independent agency and as a responsible person, it will not be appropriate to speak more without complete information," Patel added.
On Tuesday, Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar and leaders from the NCP met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and demanded a CBI probe into the plane crash.
"It is not a common incident...It is a wakeup call not only for Maharashtra but for the entire country. There are many politicians and other people who travel in private aircraft, and hence it is necessary to bring the facts to the fore through the probe," the NCP working president added.
The AAIB is carrying out the investigation and so are other agencies, he noted.
Patel, the working president of the NCP, also clarified his position on reports insinuating that he had delayed Ajit Pawar's originally scheduled plan to travel from Mumbai to Pune by car.
"I had called Ajit Pawar on his phone from Delhi to discuss issues of farmers. I was not aware where he was. This doesn't mean that I tried to delay him," he added.