The Supreme Court on Friday told the 91-year-old father of a pilot involved in the June 12 Air India crash, and blamed by some foreign commentators for the tragedy, not to “carry the burden or blame”.
The bench issued notices to the Centre and aviation regulator DGCA on a plea from Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, father of Capt. Sumeet Sabharwal, for an independent and court-monitored probe into the Ahmedabad tragedy that killed 260 people.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s (AAIB) preliminary report of July 12 said that fuel supply to both engines had been cut off, leaving the two pilots confused. It gave no final conclusion but encouraged speculation about possible pilot error.
“We know it is extremely unfortunate that the crash occurred, but you should not carry the burden on yourself or the blame on your son,” the bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi observed orally.
“Nobody can be blamed for the crash. The pilot is not to be blamed… it was an accident.”
Earlier, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing Sabharwal, had referred to reports in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that blamed the crash on the pilots.
The father’s petition claims the AAIB has wrongly blamed his son for the disaster.
However, Justice Kant said reassuringly: “We have gone through the preliminary report and there are no insinuations against the pilots. Whatever could be the reason, it is not the pilot.”
He added: “There is just a cockpit recording where one pilot asks your son whether he had turned of a switch and your son answers in the negative.”
If necessary, the bench said, it would record the same point in an order.
Sumeet Sabharwal
It refused to take cognisance of the WSJ report, saying: “It was a nasty report to only blame India…. You should know we are a country of 142 crore people and none of them believes the blame has to go to the pilot.”
Justice Bagchi said: “We are not bothered by foreign media reports. Also insinuations in an American journal require proceedings to be initiated before an American court and not under a writ petition before the Supreme Court here.”
If the petitioner wants to challenge the AAIB probe, the court said, he has to challenge the provisions and rules of the AAIB Act.
The next hearing is on September 10, by when the Centre and the DGCA are expected to file their responses.
The court said it would take the matter up with a petition filed by the Federation of Indian Pilots challenging the AAIB probe and seeking an independent investigation.
All but one of the 242 people on board died, along with 19 on the ground, when the London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed seconds after takeoff.
Some foreign pilots and crash investigators have suggested that one of the pilots shut off fuel to the engines.
The WSJ, quoting people familiar with US officials’ early assessments, reported that dialogue between the two pilots, captured by the cockpit voice recorder, indicated it was the captain who had turned off the fuel switches.
