Wing Commander (retd) Deepak Sathe (left) and the wreckage of the Air India Express flight, which crashed on August 7 .

Wing Commander (retd) Deepak Sathe, who was the captain of the Air India Express plane, which crashed in Kerala at Kozhikode on August 7, was cremated in Mumbai today with state honours. 

Captain Sathes funeral procession started from his residence in Chandivli and concluded at Vikhrolis Tagorenagar crematorium, where his last rites were performed. 

Earlier in the day, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s Office announced that the government has decided to accord state funeral to Captain Sathe. The tweet posted on CMO Maharashtra’s official handle read: The State has decided to accord a state funeral to the late Wing Commander (Retd) Captain DV Sathe. His life has been one that shall inspire many more young pilots to achieve the Sword of Honour and command over the skies (sic).

A total of 18 people, including both the pilots, died after the Air India Express flight- AIX 1344 from Dubai, carrying around 190 people and a six-member crew onboard, overshot while landing and fell 35 metres off the end of the runway at Kozhikode airport on Friday. The plane broke into three parts after falling into the gorge. The Boeing 737 jet was on Vande Bharat mission, which is an initiative to bring back Indians stranded abroad because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Captain Sathe was a former Wing Commander of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and had served at the forces flight testing establishment. He had also survived an air crash in the early 1990s when he was in the Air Force and was hospitalised for six months. Captain Sathes father Brigadier Vasant Sathe (retired) and his mother live in Nagpur.