Balwant Mehta was lying in this type of Beech18takeoffBF_(1012941995) (Photo Courtesy Bill Larkins), Right; Balwant Mehta
Super Exclusive: 60 years ago, a serving Chief Minister of Gujarat also died during flight - Pakistani fighter plane shot down the plane
A serving Chief Minister of Gujarat also died during flight:
Pakistani fighter plane shot down the Chief Minister's plane:
Gurpreet Singh Mandiani -
Ludhiana, June 12, 2025-
Today, the news of the death of former Gujarat Chief Minister Shri Vijay Rupani and hundreds of other passengers in a plane crash is in the headlines. The memory of the death of a Chief Minister of Gujarat during a flight 60 years ago has also been refreshed.
In the atmosphere of the Indo-Pak war of 1965, a small civilian plane carrying the Chief Minister of Gujarat flew from the state capital Ahmedabad to Mithapur, a city located on the Arabian Sea near the Pakistani border. It was a small coastal plane with a total of 8 passengers including the crew. These included Gujarat Chief Minister Balwant Mehta, his wife Sarojiniben Mehta, a journalist, 3 staff members including the Chief and 2 members of the flight crew.
 -Photo-By Bill Larkins-ed.jpg)
Balwant Mehta was flying in this type of Beech18takeoffBF_(1012941995) (Photo Courtesy Bill Larkins)
On 19 September 1965, the plane carrying Chief Minister Balwant Mehta was flying over the Rann of Kutch when a Pakistani fighter plane attacked it. This US-made F-86 Pakistani cyber jet fighter shot down the Chief Minister's plane. As a result, all 8 people on board the plane died. Pakistani pilot Qais Hussain, who shot down this Indian plane, said in a statement 4 decades later that he shot down the Indian plane mistaking it to be a spy plane. Pakistani pilot Qais wrote a letter to the slain Indian pilot's daughter Farida Singh and expressed grief over her father's death. In this condolence message written in 2011, Qais Hussain had said that initially I and my colleagues were happy that I had shot down an Indian spy plane, but on the same day at 7 pm when the news of the destruction of a civilian plane was broadcast on All India Radio, I realized my mistake and I and my colleagues felt very sad.