India’s top court says Air India crash report does not blame pilot

INDIA’s Supreme Court said on Friday (7) that a preliminary report on the Air India crash that killed 260 people in June does not suggest any wrongdoing by the pilot-in-command, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal.

The court will hear a plea from the pilot’s father next week seeking an independent probe into the tragedy.

The petition was filed by 91-year-old Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, who asked for the investigation to be conducted by a panel of aviation experts headed by a retired Supreme Court judge.

His plea follows his public criticism of the government’s inquiry into the disaster, which he said had implied his son may have been at fault.

Justice Surya Kant, who heard the case on Friday, told the grieving father not to feel burdened by suggestions of blame.

“This crash was extremely unfortunate, but you should not carry this burden that your son is being blamed,” Justice Kant said. “No one in India believes it was the pilot’s fault. There’s no insinuation against the pilot in the preliminary report.”

The Supreme Court has issued notices to the central government, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB). The matter will be taken up again on Monday (10). The Federation of Indian Pilots has also filed a separate petition seeking an independent inquiry.

The AAIB’s interim report, released in July, said the Dreamliner’s fuel control switches had almost simultaneously moved from “run” to “cutoff” shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad.

The engines flamed out, and although the switches were turned back on about 10 seconds later, it was too late to recover power. The plane crashed shortly afterwards, killing all 260 people on board.

The report recorded that one pilot asked the other why the fuel switches had been turned off, and the other denied doing so. The investigation has not ruled out a technical fault, and experts in aviation medicine and psychology are part of the ongoing probe.

Sabharwal’s lawyer, Gopal Shankaranarayan, argued that the AAIB investigation lacked independence and called for a judicial committee to examine the crash. “There’s a problem with Boeing aircraft all over the world,” he said, suggesting that a wider inquiry was needed.

During the hearing, the court dismissed concerns raised over a Wall Street Journal article that cited unnamed Indian officials. “We are not bothered by foreign reports,” Justice Kant said. “Your remedy should then be before a foreign court? It’s just nasty reporting.”

The government has described the AAIB probe as “very clean” and “very thorough.” Air India’s managing director and chief executive Campbell Wilson said last month that while the AAIB report found no fault with the airline’s operations, the company was reviewing its practices.

(with inputs from Reuters)