Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar and leaders from the NCP on Tuesday met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and demanded a CBI probe into the January 28 air crash that killed Ajit Pawar.

Speaking to reporters, senior NCP leader Sunil Tatkare said that the chief minister assured that the state government will communicate with the Union Home Ministry in this regard.

Sunetra Pawar, accompanied by senior leaders Tatkare, Praful Patel, Hassan Mushrif, and elder son Parth Pawar, met Fadnavis and handed over a letter seeking a CBI probe.
"The chief minister has assured us that the state government will communicate with the Union Home Ministry in this regard. The government has already initiated a probe by independent agencies and has said it will order a CBI investigation. We feel probe by the central agency would be comprehensive," Tatkare said.

NCP leader Ajit Pawar and four others were killed in a plane crash at Baramati in Pune district on January 28.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut also supported suspicions within the Pawar family over the plane crash on Tuesday.

At a press conference, Raut said, "Ajit Pawar's flight's black box has burned," underlining the Pawar family's doubts and raising questions about the government's handling of the investigation. "The black box has burned... The black box has been found even after 20 years, but Ajit Pawar's flight's black box has burned. How can this be possible? If Rohit Pawar has raised this issue, it is serious, and if the Pawar family wants to investigate it, they should do so", he said.

Earlier in the day, the aircraft accident probe agency, AAIB, 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.

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 Organization) Annex 13.