The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Centre and aviation regulator DGCA on a plea for a court-monitored probe into the June 12 Air India crash, after the petitioner alleged unfair attempts by authorities to blame the pilots.
As the petitioner, the pilots’ body Safety Matters Foundation, suggested that selective leaks of the preliminary probe report were being made to prematurely suggest pilot error, the court said this was “unfortunate”.
“Suppose, tomorrow someone says X pilot is responsible and ultimately in the final inquiry he is found innocent?” the court said.
“…Instead of piecemeal leaking of information, somebody should maintain confidentiality till regular inquiry is taken to a logical conclusion.”
The bench agreed orally with Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioner, that aircraft manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus tended to escape blame after such accidents.
“They will not attribute anything to Boeing, Airbus.… Somebody will start blaming staff of the airlines and therefore entire airline is to be run down…,” the bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice N.K. Singh observed.
It sought the response of the Centre and the aviation regulator, DGCA, within four weeks.
The London-bound Flight AI171 had crashed moments after takeoff from Ahmedabad, killing all but one of the 242 people on board as well as 19 on the ground.
Bhushan told the court that the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s preliminary report, attributing the crash to the aircraft’s fuel control switches moving from “run” to “cutoff”, appeared to imply pilot error.
A plain clothed policeman passes by damaged buildings, where an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plane crashed during takeoff from a nearby airport, in Ahmedabad Reuters
However, crucial flight data such as the complete Digital Flight Data Recorder output, the full Cockpit Voice Recorder transcript with timestamps, and the Electronic Aircraft Fault Recording data have been withheld, he said.
“It’s been more than 100 days since the crash. All that has been done is (that) a preliminary report was released and that report does not give any guidance about what may have happened, or what precautions should be taken,” he said.
“The result is, all passengers who are travelling on these Boeing planes are at risk today.”
Bhushan said the five-member inquiry panel had three officials from the DGCA, which suggested a conflict of interests.
He argued that since the accident had brought the regulator’s role under the scanner, too, the inquiry panel ought not to have DGCA officials on it.
Bhushan said several pilots and relatives of the dead passengers had called him and complained that some international publications were quoting Indian officials “to portray that there was a pilot error”.
“That is very unfortunate,” Justice Kant observed.
The bench agreed that any inquiry into the accident should be conducted by an experts’ body.
“There has to be some experts’ body…. You are right, the inquiry should be completed promptly without giving opportunity to anyone to create rumours or do misrepresentation...,” the bench said.
Bhushan said information from the flight data recorders – on what was happening in the aircraft systems in the lead-up to the crash -- should be released so that independent experts could examine them.
He said there was nothing wrong or harmful in releasing such data in the public interest.
Bhushan told the bench that the Safety Matters Foundation, the petitioner, had several senior and experienced pilots among its office-bearers, and they were anguished at the selective leaks by the authorities.
He sought a free, impartial, speedy and independent investigation by an experts’ body.