The Supreme Court on Friday assured the father of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, pilot-in-command of the Air India flight that crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12 killing over 250 people, that his son bore no blame for the tragedy.
The top court also issued notices to the Centre and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on a plea seeking a judicially monitored investigation into the incident.
The bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi told senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for petitioner Pushkaraj Sabharwal, the 91-year-old father of the deceased pilot, that neither the preliminary report nor any official finding held the cockpit crew responsible.
“You should not carry burden on yourself. The pilot is not to be blamed for the plane crash. It was an accident. There is no insinuation against him even in the preliminary report,” the bench said.
The court observed that it had carefully examined the findings of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) issued on July 12 and found no attribution of fault to Captain Sabharwal or co-pilot Captain Clive Kunder.
“We have gone through the report. There is no insinuation against the pilot at all… Whatever could be the reason for the tragedy, it is not the pilots,” the bench remarked.
“This is an extremely unfortunate accident. But you should not carry this burden that your son is being blamed. We can always clarify that nobody and especially the pilot cannot be blamed for the tragedy,” it added.
The court noted that the AAIB report merely mentioned a brief exchange between the pilots captured on the cockpit voice recorder.
“There is just a mention of the cockpit recorder where one pilot asks your son whether he turned off a switch and your son answers in the negative. That is all there is in the report. The main purpose of the investigation is to ensure such incidents do not recur,” the bench said.
Senior advocate Sankaranarayanan informed the court that there had been media reports, including one by The Wall Street Journal, suggesting pilot error.
“It was nasty reporting only to blame India,” the bench observed in response, adding that such coverage had no bearing on the legal or factual record.
“With respect, you should have filed a suit against the Wall Street Journal in an American court. Your angst is understandable but there is clear incongruity between public perception and the factual position,” it added.
The judges further remarked: “We are a country of 142 crore people and none of them believes the blame has to go to the pilot. Whatever could be the reason of the tragedy, it is not the pilots. Also, insinuation in an American journal requires proceedings before an American court and not a writ petition before the Supreme Court of India.”
The petition filed by Sabharwal and the Federation of Indian Pilots seeks a “fair, transparent and technically robust” court-monitored inquiry, alleging that the existing investigation was “incomplete and prejudiced.”
“An incomplete and prejudiced inquiry, without identification of the exact cause of the accident, endangers the lives of future passengers and undermines aviation safety at large, causing a violation of Article 21 of the Constitution,” the plea stated.
It argues that the preliminary findings suggesting “human error” ignored possible electrical or digital system failures and that attributing blame to the crew without ruling out mechanical malfunction “reverses causation and unfairly maligns the deceased pilots.”
Sankaranarayanan also highlighted alleged questions posed to the pilot’s family about his personal life, calling it “a completely non-independent investigation.”
The plea, filed through AP&J Chambers on October 10, names the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation, DGCA, and AAIB as respondents and seeks the formation of an independent committee including aviation and technical experts.
The bench said that if the petitioners sought to challenge the statutory process, they might need to question the underlying legal provisions.
“You will have to challenge the rule under which the investigation is being undertaken,” the court observed.
The case will next be heard on November 10, alongside other pending petitions, including one filed by NGO Safety Matters Foundation.
That earlier plea had raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest due to DGCA representation on the AAIB panel, prompting the bench to underscore that such inquiries must be “free, fair, impartial, and expeditious.”
The ill-fated Air India Flight AI-171 had taken off from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport for London Gatwick but crashed within minutes, impacting the BJ Medical College hostel located less than a nautical mile from the runway end.
The crash killed 260 people — 229 passengers, 12 crew members, and 19 on the ground — and left several others injured. The Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) failed to activate.
According to the preliminary AAIB report, both engine fuel control switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF seconds after takeoff, leading to a loss of thrust. The cockpit voice recorder captured one pilot questioning the action, with the other denying it. The Ram Air Turbine, a backup power system, deployed automatically, and although one engine began to recover, the aircraft could not regain altitude. A Mayday call was recorded moments before impact.
“The scope of the AAIB investigation is not to blame but to suggest preventive measures to avoid future tragedies. If necessary, we will clarify that the pilot cannot be blamed,” the bench said.