Supreme Court issues notice to Centre on Air India pilot's father's plea for judicial inquiry –'None of 142 cr people'

The Supreme Court issued a notice on Friday to the Centre and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in response to the Air India pilot's father's plea for a judicial inquiry into the Ahmedabad plane crash.

The pilot is not to be blamed, you should not carry the burden on yourself, the top court told the 91-year-old father of the pilot killed, along with 250 people, in a plane crash on 12 June, news agency PTI reported.

The Court order came in response to a petition by Pushkaraj Sabharwal, whose son, Sumeet Sabharwal, served as the pilot-in-command of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) has also filed a petition with the same demand.

A bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi told senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for petitioner Pushkaraj Sabharwal 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, according to legal news website LiveLaw

The petitioners approached the court after the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB)released its preliminary report in July, stating that fuel supply to both engines was cut off shortly after takeoff.

The two fuel control switches were moved to the “cutoff” position in quick succession. Although the switches were turned back on about 10 seconds later, the engines had already flamed out, leading to the crash, the report said.

The top court told the deceased pilot’s father that none of the 1.42 crore Indians believe there was any fault with the pilot. The court agreed to take up the petition seeking an independent probe, along with a pending plea by a non-profit, Safety Matters, next week.

“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 of the tragedy, it is not the pilots,” the court said.

(With inputs from LiveLaw)