AI-171 crash preliminary report does not blame late pilot Sumeet Sabharwal: Centre to SC

The Central government on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that the preliminary report into the Air India flight crash in Ahmedabad in June this year does not blame any pilot for the deadly incident. This has been clarified by the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Centre stated.

The Union government further informed the apex court that a team of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) was set up to look into the Air India plane crash under an international regime, and the investigation is currently underway.

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The top court, meanwhile, sought responses from the Centre and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on a plea of the father of one of the deceased pilots for an independent and judicially-monitored probe into the June Air India crash that claimed 260 lives. Only one person survived the horrific crash.

The plea has been filed by the father of late Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, who was the Pilot-in-Command of the ill-fated flight. The AI-171 flight had crashed just seconds after take-off on June 12.

Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing the 91-year-old father of the deceased commander, had told the court during the last hearing that the ongoing investigation by the DGCA and the AAIB was “not independent”.

A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan had taken note of the submissions and also sought to reassure the petitioner on his apprehension that his son was being unfairly blamed for the crash. “It’s extremely unfortunate, this crash, but you should not carry this burden that your son is being blamed. Nobody can blame him for anything,” the court stated.

The SC further had stated that the preliminary AAIB report did not contain any insinuation against the pilot, adding that the short cockpit conversation cited in the preliminary report did not attribute any blame. The court, while commenting on a Wall Street Journal report suggesting pilot error, had stated: “We are not bothered by foreign reports. That is nasty reporting. No one in India believes it was the pilot’s fault.”

The plea claimed that the probe currently underway is “defective and suffers from serious infirmities and perversities”. It added that the preliminary report, issued on June 15, attributed the crash to “pilot error, while overlooking other glaring and plausible systemic causes”.

“The report hastily infers the incident to pilot error, without any corroborative evidence or comprehensive technical analysis, thereby undermining both the integrity of the inquiry and the memory of the deceased crew,” the plea further said.