Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and co-pilot Clive Kunder had nearly 10,000 hours of combined flying experience. But on June 12, they lasted barely a minute in the air aboard the ill-fated Air India Flight 171.
The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner took off from Ahmedabad at approximately 1:38pm, but crashed just seconds later into the hostel of a nearby medical college.
Among the 242 people onboard (230 passengers and 12 crew members), only one Indian-origin British man seated near the emergency exit survived.
On the ground, the death toll was around 33, taking the total number of fatalities to over 270.
The fire that followed the fatal crash was so severe that the bodies of most of the victims were charred beyond recognition.
By Monday morning, four days after the crash, the remains of only 87 victims had been identified through DNA tests.
Captain Sabharwal longed for more time with his father
Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, 55, had been considering early retirement to spend more time with his octogenarian father, a retired officer from India’s civil aviation authority. With his mother having passed away three years ago and his sister settled in Delhi, he was all his elderly father had.
Neighbours remembered him as a soft-spoken, reserved man who often accompanied his father on quiet walks through the garden of their housing complex.
“He doesn’t speak much. We try to offer him tea, et cetera, but he won’t have anything,” said Sabharwal’s neighbor, Sanjeev Pai, speaking to The New York Times about the grieving father.
Dilip Lande, a local lawmaker, told the NYT, “An hour before the Air India flight took off, he spoke to his father and told him that he would call again after landing in London. That call never came.”
‘Very Humble’: First Officer Clive Kunder had a promising future ahead of him
Clive Kunder, 32, also came from an aviation background. His mother worked as a flight attendant, also for Air India.
Within a few years of joining the airline, Kunder had already logged over 1,100 hours of flight time.
According to news reports, his parents were visiting his sister in Australia when the crash took place. They flew down to Ahmedabad on Friday, joining the harrowing wait for the authorities to identify and release the remains of the victims.
Speaking to the NYT, Rev. Sam Muni, of the U.B.M. Christa Kanthi Church in Mumbai, described Kunder as a 'very humble' person who was regular in his parish, and often attended Mass with his parents.
On Sunday, the parish celebrated Mass in Mr. Kunder’s name, Rev. Muni said.
The Mayday call
Captain Sabharwal had issued a 'Mayday' call to the air traffic controller (ATC), declaring a full emergency. Moments later, the plane went down.
“When the air traffic controller tried to contact the plane, there was no response,” said Samir Kumar Sinha, India’s Civil Aviation Secretary, at a news conference.
Recorded conversation between the pilots found
Officials investigating the Air India crash have confirmed the recovery of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR). Considered a crucial discovery, they hope the recorded conversations between Captain Sabharwal and First Officer Kunder will shed light on the cause of the accident. The Flight Data Recorder (FDR) of the plane had been recovered earlier.
With the finding of both black boxes of the plane, it would be easy for investigators to ascertain the cause of the crash.
