SC says pilots not to blame in Air India crash, agrees to consider fresh probe

The Supreme Court stated Air India pilots can't be blamed for the June 12 crash, urging clarity on their innocence amid ongoing investigations.

The Supreme Court on Friday underlined that the pilots of the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner that crashed on June 12, killing over 250 people, cannot be held responsible for the tragedy, and that no government report has sought to apportion blame on them. The court added that it was prepared to state this on record, even as it agreed to examine a plea filed by the father of the pilot-in-command seeking a judicially monitored investigation.

SC says pilots not to blame in Air India crash, agrees to consider fresh probe

A bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi told senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for petitioner Pushkaraj Sabharwal -- father of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal who commanded the Air India flight -- that the family should not bear the burden of any perceived insinuation.

“This is an extremely unfortunate accident. But you should not carry this burden that your son is being blamed. We can always clarify that nobody and especially the pilot cannot be blamed for the tragedy,” the bench said.

“We have gone through the report. There is no insinuation against the pilot at all… Whatever could be the reason for the tragedy, it is not the pilots,” added the bench, stressing that the preliminary probe so far did not attribute fault to the cockpit crew.

“There is just a mention of the cockpit recorder where one pilot asks your son whether he turned off a switch and your son answers in the negative. That is all there is in the report. The main purpose of the investigation is to ensure such incidents do not recur,” said the bench, issuing notice to the Centre and the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

The petition filed by Sabharwal and the Federation of Indian Pilots has sought a court-monitored inquiry, alleging that the preliminary findings of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) suggesting “human error” were “defective”, suffered from “prejudice”, and ignored evidence of an electrical or digital systems failure. It argues that to infer pilot error without ruling out malfunction in the Boeing 787’s digital control architecture reverses causation and unfairly maligns the deceased crew.

Sankaranarayanan told the bench that the broader concern was about the integrity of the inquiry. “There has been a completely non-independent investigation,” submitted the senior counsel, pointing to questions allegedly asked to the family about the pilot’s personal life. He also referred to reporting in the Wall Street Journal based on unnamed government sources, which he said contributed to wrongful public perception.

But the bench said the Supreme Court was not guided by foreign reportage. “With respect, you should have filed a suit against the Wall Street Journal in an American court. Your angst is understandable but there is clear incongruity between public perception and the factual position,” said the bench.

It added: “We are a country of 142 crore people and none of them believes the blame has to go to the pilot. Whatever could be the reason for the tragedy, it is not the pilots. Also, insinuation in an American journal requires proceedings before an American court and not a writ petition before the Supreme Court of India.”

The court also remarked that if the petitioners wished to attack the ongoing statutory inquiry, they must challenge the relevant provisions of the Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules. “You will have to challenge the rule under which the investigation is being undertaken,” the bench said.

The matter will now be heard next week along with a similar plea filed earlier by NGO Safety Matters Foundation, on which the same bench issued notice in September. In that hearing too, the bench had described as “unfortunate” the selective public disclosure of portions of the preliminary report that appeared to suggest pilot error, observing that families should not have to bear additional stigma after suffering loss.

The September petition sought an impartial and expert-led investigation and pointed to the presence of DGCA representatives on the AAIB panel as a potential conflict of interest. The court had then stressed that aviation accident inquiries must be “free, fair, impartial and expeditious,” and that incomplete or selective disclosures risk distortion and reputational damage.

On June 12, Air India Flight AI-171 carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, killing 229 passengers, all crew members, and 19 people on the ground. Several others sustained serious injuries.

The AAIB led the inquiry into the tragedy, with participation from the US National Transportation Safety Board, the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch, and Boeing representatives.

On July 12, the preliminary report revealed that both engine fuel control switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF seconds after takeoff, resulting in a loss of thrust. The cockpit voice recorder captured one pilot questioning the fuel cutoff, with the other denying responsibility. The Ram Air Turbine, a backup power system, deployed automatically, and although one engine began to recover after the switches were returned to RUN, the aircraft could not regain altitude. A Mayday call was recorded moments before the crash.

Since then, a report from the Wall Street Journal alleged that the captain of the flight, Sumeet Sabharwal, might have switched off the power even as AAIB has dismissed the charges and called the reporting “irresponsible”.

In the present petition, Pushkaraj Sabharwal and the group of pilots have pointed to the Ram Air Turbine having deployed seconds after take-off -- an emergency condition triggered only when an aircraft loses primary and auxiliary power, to contend that the sequence of events reflects a serious systems failure rather than pilot action. The petition stresses that the deceased pilots, including Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, an aviator with over 15,600 flying hours and an unblemished three-decade career, cannot be blamed for what their families describe as a catastrophic technical collapse.

Further, the petition underscored that the initial investigation appears skewed towards examining the conduct of the pilots, who are no longer alive to defend themselves, while failing to methodically pursue other plausible causes, including potential software or avionics faults in the Boeing 787’s integrated digital control architecture.

It noted that similar electrical anomalies have been flagged globally in the aircraft model, and yet no independent forensic or fault-injection testing has been commissioned to confirm or rule out such risks.

To ensure credibility, transparency and public safety, the petition calls for a judicially monitored inquiry led by a former Supreme Court judge and aviation experts, cautioning that a rushed or incomplete probe could not only tarnish the memory of those who died in the cockpit, but also endanger future passengers if systemic vulnerabilities remain undetected.