A pilots’ association on Thursday sent a legal notice to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) for summoning a relative of one of the dead pilots of the Air India Dreamliner that crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12 last year.
Questioning the fairness of the probe, the Federation of Indian Pilots alleged that the investigation appeared to be proceeding along a "pre-decided narrative" that shifted the blame onto the flight crew instead of examining systemic, mechanical and operational factors.
The Federation is among those that moved the Supreme Court last year seeking a court-monitored probe into the crash, which killed at least 260 people. It says the AAIB's summoning of Captain Varun Anand, nephew of the late Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, in connection with the June 12 crash is "impermissible in law".
In the legal notice, the pilots’ body has asserted that Anand, who is also an Air India pilot, had no association whatsoever with the AI171 aircraft that crashed, whether relating to its planning, dispatch, operation, maintenance, certification, airworthiness clearance, or crew composition.
Summoning him, the Federation said, was "wholly unwarranted and amounts to harassment and distress in the aftermath of a tragic loss".
According to the notice, Anand is neither a factual or technical expert, nor a witness in the case.
The only apparent basis for calling him, the Federation has argued, are his family ties with the dead pilot-in-command, which is "impermissible in law and renders the summoning arbitrary and unsustainable".
"Such conduct gives rise to a serious apprehension that the investigation is proceeding on a preconceived narrative seeking to portray or attribute responsibility to the deceased flight crew rather than objectively examining systemic, mechanical or operational causes," the Federation has said.
Anand was informed by his employer, Air India, that the AAIB had asked him to appear in connection with the crash, the Federation said.
The Federation said the AAIB summons did not disclose the statutory provision, purpose, or relevance under which Anand had been summoned, nor did it specify the capacity in which his presencewas required.
“The summoning of Capt. Varun Anand, as also of other family members, is wholly without jurisdiction and contrary to the Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules as well as International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Annexe 13, which strictly confines accident investigations to technical, safety-oriented fact-finding and expressly prohibits attribution of blame or liability,” the legal notice says.
“The governing framework does not contemplate examination of family members of deceased crew who have no factual or technical linkage to the occurrence.”
However, the pilots’ body clarified that Anand could appear via videoconferencing and answer any question he might be asked.
The preliminary crash report had raised several questions without conclusively explaining the cause.
The investigators had noted that fuel supply to both engines had been cut off seconds after takeoff, and that the cockpit voice recordings had captured confusion between the two pilots, with one asking why the cutoff had been initiated and the other responding that he had not done it.
The findings had prompted Sabharwal’s 91-year-old father, Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, the Federation and the NGO Safety Matters Foundation to move the Supreme Court, alleging the preliminary report was biased and incomplete and demanding a court-monitored probe.