Family, friends bid farewell to flight attendant Pinky Mali

The last rites of flight attendant Pinky Mali, who died in a plane crash that also killed Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and three others, were performed on Thursday at central Mumbai’s Shivaji Park crematorium, officials said. Pinky Mali’s family broke down in grief as they gathered around her funeral pyre, the sombre moment marked by quiet sobs and loud wails.

Earlier, her mortal remains were brought in an ambulance from Baramati, where she died in the air tragedy, to the Kharigaon locality in neighbouring Thane city. Pinky (29), who got married three years ago, had been living in the area with her husband for the past four months.

The remains were then taken to her maternal home at Prabhadevi in central Mumbai, where she grew up from childhood, the official said. Neighbours and friends struggled to hold back tears as they paid their last respects to her. Speaking to media persons earlier, Pinky’s father Shivkumar Mali had recalled that she wanted to make her elder brother a pilot.

Pinky had been working as a flight attendant for the last five years. She started with Air India and moved to private chartered flights after a couple of years, he had said.

She had flown with the President, chief ministers and several political leaders, the father had said, adding that she was flying with Ajit Pawar for the fourth time.

Her husband works in a managerial post in an Indian multinational company engaged in EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) projects, hi-tech manufacturing and services, the official said.

Pinky, Pawar and three others were travelling on a chartered aircraft when it crashed barely 200 metres from the edge of a table-top runway at Baramati airport in Pune district on Wednesday, leaving no survivors.