SC says no one blames Air India pilot for Ahmedabad crash

New Delhi, Nov 7: The Supreme Court on Friday observed that no one has held Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, the pilot of the Air India flight that crashed in Ahmedabad in June this year, responsible for the accident that killed 260 people, including 19 on the ground, reports Bar & Bench.

A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi made the observation while hearing a plea filed by the pilot’s 91-year-old father, Pushkaraj Sabharwal, who has sought an independent judicial probe into the fatal crash.

“Nobody can blame the pilot for anything,” Justice Kant remarked, according to Bar & Bench. During the hearing, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the petitioner, said that some quarters had been unfairly attributing blame to Captain Sabharwal. “The Wall Street Journal has carried an article based on this investigation,” he told the court. Justice Bagchi, however, responded, “We are not bothered with that.” When the lawyer expressed concern that his late son was being attacked, Justice Bagchi said, “Then your case should be against WSJ in an American court, not here.”

Reassuring the petitioner, Justice Kant said, “None of the people in the country believe that it is the fault of the pilot.” Sankaranarayanan added that pilots “offer their services to the nation” and that such insinuations were “very sad.” He urged the court to list the matter for further hearing on November 10, stressing that aviation rules require an independent probe into such crashes, which has not yet been done. “Only a preliminary investigation had taken place under Rule 9,” he submitted.

The petition filed by Sabharwal and the Federation of Indian Pilots seeks the constitution of a judicially monitored committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, with independent aviation experts, to ensure a fair and technically sound investigation into the June 12 crash of the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner during takeoff from Ahmedabad.

The petitioners have alleged that the preliminary report submitted by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on June 15 was “defective and perverse,” implausibly attributing the cause of the crash to pilot error while ignoring other systemic and technical factors. They contended that a flawed inquiry without identifying the true cause endangers aviation safety and violates the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution. A related plea filed by the NGO Safety Matters Foundation, which also seeks a fair and impartial investigation into the crash, is pending before the top court.