Father of Air India crash pilot seeks Supreme Court probe into investigation

THE 91-YEAR-OLD father of the Air India pilot involved in a June crash that killed 260 people has approached the Supreme Court seeking an independent investigation into the incident.

The petition calls for a probe that looks beyond pilot error and asks for an independent panel of aviation experts headed by a retired Supreme Court judge to examine other possible causes.

The move marks an escalation in protests by the father and a pilots' union over the government’s handling of what was the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade. The crash occurred soon after takeoff from Ahmedabad.

The pilot’s father, Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, filed the plea weeks after publicly criticising the government investigation. He said officials from India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) had visited him and implied that his son, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, cut the fuel supply to the plane’s engines after takeoff.

The government has denied the allegations, describing the probe as “very clean” and “very thorough.”

In his October 11 filing, the father told the court that the investigation team appeared to “predominantly focus on the deceased pilots ... while failing to examine or eliminate other more plausible technical and procedural causes,” one of the sources said.

The petition seeks to close the current government-led probe and transfer it to a new panel chaired by a retired Supreme Court judge and including aviation experts, two sources said. They spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Supreme Court has yet to take up the case, which the court’s website on Thursday showed had been jointly filed by Sabharwal and the Federation of Indian Pilots against the government. The site did not provide further details.

The AAIB, the civil aviation ministry, planemaker Boeing and Air India did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. Sabharwal’s father and the pilots’ union also did not reply to emails seeking comment.

A preliminary AAIB report said the Boeing Dreamliner’s fuel engine switches had almost simultaneously flipped from “run” to “cutoff” just after takeoff.

A cockpit recording supported the view that Captain Sabharwal had cut the fuel flow to the engines, a source briefed on US officials’ early assessment of the evidence in July told Reuters.

The Federation of Indian Pilots represents about 5,000 members.

(With inputs from agencies)