Former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who died in a tragic plane crash in Ahmedabad on Thursday, has joined the list of several top Indian politicians and prominent personalities who lost their lives in aviation accidents.
Rupani was on the London-bound flight that crashed moments after taking off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, killing 241 of the 242 persons on board.
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Here is a list of the top politicians and prominent figures who lost their lives in air tragedies:
* Homi Bhabha (1966) India’s pioneering nuclear physicist Homi Jehangir Bhabha died in a tragic crash aboard Air India Flight 101 on January 24, 1966. The plane crashed into Mont Blanc in the Swiss Alps due to a miscommunication with the Geneva air traffic control.
* Sanjay Gandhi (1980) Congress leader and son of then prime minister Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi died in a tragic crash on June 23, 1980. Attempting aerial stunts in a Delhi Flying Club aircraft near the Safdarjung Airport, the plane lost control and crashed.
* Madhavrao Scindia (2001) Senior Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia, himself a former civil aviation minister, died on September 30, 2001, in a plane crash en route a political rally in Kanpur. The 10-seater private aircraft crashed due to poor weather conditions near Manipuri in Uttar Pradesh.
* GMC Balayogi (2002) Lok Sabha Speaker and Telugu Desam Party leader G M C Balayogi died in a chopper crash on March 3, 2002, when a private helicopter carrying him from Bhimavaram in West Godavari district crashed into a pond near Kaikalur in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh.
* Cyprian Sangma (2004) Meghalaya’s Rural Development Minister Cyprian Sangma and nine others, who were heading from Guwahati to Shillong on a Pawan Hans helicopter, were killed when the chopper crashed near the Barapani lake, just 20 km from the state capital, on September 22, 2004.
* K S Sowmya (2004) Famous South Indian actress K S Sowmya, popular as Soundarya, lost her life in an air crash on April 17, 2004. The “Sooryavansham” actress was flying from Bengaluru to Karimnagar with her brother at the time of the crash.
* O P Jindal and Surender Singh (2005) Industrialist and Haryana minister Om Prakash Jindal lost his life in a helicopter crash in 2005 along with Agriculture Minister Surender Singh. Their chopper was en route Chandigarh from Delhi when it crashed in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur.
* Y S Reddy (2009) Then chief minister of Andhra Pradesh Y S Rajasekhara Reddy (2009), popularly known as YSR, died on September 2, 2009, when his Bell 430 helicopter crashed in the dense Nallamala forest due to bad weather.
* Dorjee Khandu (2011) Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu and four others were killed on April 30, 2011, when a helicopter carrying them from Tawang to Itanagar crashed in West Kameng district of the state.
* CDS General Bipin Rawat (2021) India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, died in a helicopter crash on December 8, 2021. The incident occurred near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu while he was en route from Sulur to Wellington with his wife and 11 others.
Published – June 13, 2025 02:08 pm IST
