Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
New Delhi, Nov 7 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Center on a petition filed by the family of late Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, the pilot-in-command of the Air India plane that crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12, killing over 260 people – seeking an independent and judicially monitored investigation into the tragedy.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan took note of the submissions of senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the deceased commander’s 91-year-old father, that the ongoing investigation by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) was “not independent”.
During the hearing, Justice Kant, led by Justice Kant, allaying the petitioner’s apprehension that his son was being wrongly blamed for the accident, remarked: “It is extremely unfortunate, this accident, but you should not bear the burden that your son is being blamed. No one can blame him for anything.”
It said there was no indication of pilot error in the initial AAIB report, noting that the brief cockpit exchange cited in the report did not indicate any fault. When the petitioner side flagged the Wall Street Journal report alleging the pilot was at fault, the top court refused to give any weightage to such material and said: “We are not bothered by foreign reports. This is shoddy reporting. No one in India believes that it was the pilot’s fault.”
The petition alleged that the ongoing investigation “is flawed and suffers from serious weaknesses and distortions”.
The preliminary report released on June 15 blamed the crash on “pilot error, while ignoring other obvious and plausible systemic causes”.
It added, “The report hastily attributes the incident to pilot error without any corroborating evidence or comprehensive technical analysis, thereby undermining both the integrity of the investigation and the memory of the deceased crew.”
The petition raised questions over the unexplained deployment of an emergency device, the Ram Air Turbine (RAT), at the time of take-off before any input from the crew.
“This premature activation is a direct indicator of an electrical or digital malfunction,” the petition says, adding that the investigation “ignored the possibility that the sequence of failures could have been triggered by a malfunction in the Common Core System (CCS) that integrates the avionics, flight controls, power distribution, and software.”
The petition also questioned the selective and unauthorized leak of cockpit voice recordings (CVRs) in the public domain, calling it an act of defaming deceased pilots without evidence, tantamount to state-supported defamation and mental cruelty towards their families.
“These selective leaks have fueled a malicious media campaign, resulting in defamation of the character of late Captain Sumeet Sabharwal,” the petition said.
It further alleged that falsehoods suggesting suicidal intentions were circulated, thereby violating his fundamental right to dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The petition questioned the investigation’s failure to account for prior incidents involving Boeing 787 aircraft, including the JAL battery fire (2013), ANA electrical failure (2013), and LATAM in-flight disturbance (2024).
“The investigator’s failure to engage with this historical pattern reflects a deliberate limitation of the investigation inconsistent with international standards of air accident investigation,” the petition says.
It added, “Despite these known vulnerabilities, the investigation failed to seek technical clarification from Boeing, GE, or Honeywell or initiate independent software forensics or fault-injection testing.”
The petition said the current investigation approach “not only undermines aviation safety and public confidence but also violates the principles of justice and fairness”.
–IANS
PDS/DPB