Senior Indian opposition politician Mr Madhav Rao Scindia was killed with seven other people yesterday when his private aircraft crashed amid heavy rain north of New Delhi, officials said.
Mr Scindia, the Congress party's deputy leader in parliament, was killed after his aircraft left the Indian capital for the northern city of Kanpur, where he was to address a political rally.
"It is a very unfortunate incident. A young and dynamic face of the party has been lost," senior Congress official Mr Ambica Soni said.
Mr Scindia (56) was accompanied by seven people, four of them journalists.
All of them were killed when the aircraft crashed at Bhongaon in Uttar Pradesh, some 350 km north of New Delhi, district officials said.
A police official said the 10-seater Cessna's single engine caught fire and the aircraft plunged into a paddy field. It broke into two, with one of the pieces submerged under water.
India's civil aviation minister Mr Shahnawaz Hussain said a "high-level" investigation had been ordered into the crash.
In New Delhi, Prime Minister Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, Congress party leader Ms Sonia Gandhi, and other leading Indian politicians went to Mr Scindia's residence to offer condolences to his widow and two children.
Mr Scindia, a refined Oxford graduate and member of a former royal family, had often been viewed as an heir to Ms Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of slain prime minister Mr Rajiv Gandhi.
Mr Scindia was appointed civil aviation and tourism minister in 1991.