'No Longer Able To Defend Themselves': Father Of AI-171 Pilot Moves SC For Judicial Probe
The plea filed by Pushkaraj Sabharwal and Federation of Indian Pilots sought to conduct a fair, transparent and technically sound investigation into the crash
Published : October 16, 2025 at 5:01 PM IST
New Delhi: Four months after the AI-171 plane crash in Ahmedabad left 260 people dead, the father of the pilot, late Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, has moved the Supreme Court, seeking a judicially monitored committee, headed by a former judge of the apex court, to conduct a probe into the crash.
The plea contended that the preliminary investigation into the crash is profoundly flawed. "The investigation team had rather conducted a comprehensive technical inquiry, which appears predominantly focused on the deceased pilots, who are no longer able to defend themselves, while failing to examine or eliminate other more plausible technical and procedural causes of the crash", said the plea filed by Pushkaraj Sabharwal and Federation of Indian Pilots.
The petitioners emphasise that factual misdirection through selective disclosure, especially against crew who cannot defend themselves, impedes root cause discovery and threatens future flight safety, calling for a neutral judicial lens.
The plea sought the constitution of a judicially monitored committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge and with independent experts from the aviation sector as its members, to conduct a fair, transparent and technically sound investigation into the crash of Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft.
The plea contended that the investigation conducted by the respondents is vitiated by selective and incomplete disclosure of material facts, disregard of critical inconsistencies, and suppression of systemic causes that point to design or electronic malfunction.
"The report hastily infers the incident to pilot error, without any corroborative evidence or comprehensive technical analysis, thereby undermining both the integrity of the inquiry and the memory of the deceased crew", it said. The respondents in the plea are: Union of India, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, and Director General, Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB).
The plea said the preliminary report suffers from serious technical defects and omissions, which render its conclusions unreliable. "It fails to analyse the significance of the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) deployment, neglects to investigate potential failure of Boeing's Common Core System (CCS), and offers no adequate explanation for the simultaneous loss of multiple redundant safety and data systems, factors indicative of a systemic electrical collapse rather than human error", said the plea.
The plea said the report's conclusion attributing causation to pilot error is inherently implausible and contrary to recorded data, as the RAT deployment occurred before any manual pilot input. "The failure to correlate crew control inputs with RAT extension demonstrates non-application of mind and suppression of material facts, thereby violating the mandate of fair, rational, and evidence-based investigation guaranteed under Article 14", it said.
"The respondents have unlawfully disclosed the contents of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) in direct contravention of Rule 17(5) of the 2017 Rules. The selective leaks have fuelled a malicious media campaign, resulting in the posthumous vilification of Late Capt. Sumeet Sabharwal and violation of his and his family's right to dignity and reputation, which are integral to the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India", said the plea.
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