The Supreme Court on Friday (November 7, 2025) orally observed that no fault could be ascribed to the pilot who was commanding the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner that crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad on June 12, claiming over 250 lives, and clarified that no official report had held the cockpit crew responsible for the tragedy.
A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said it was even willing to record this position formally, as it took up for hearing a petition filed by Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, father of the late Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, seeking a judicially monitored probe into the crash.
Appearing for the petitioner, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan contended that the preliminary findings of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) were “biased and incomplete” and appeared to attribute the cause of the crash to pilot error while overlooking possible technical and systemic failures that warranted an independent probe.
Citing Rule 12 of the Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules, 2017, Mr. Sankaranarayanan argued that the Centre was mandated to institute a formal investigation into the crash. “That has not been done. What we have instead is a preliminary investigation under Rule 9,” he submitted.
Allaying the petitioner’s concerns that his son was being unfairly blamed, the Bench said, “This is an extremely unfortunate accident. But you should not carry the burden that your son is being blamed. We can always clarify that nobody, and especially the pilot, can be blamed for the tragedy.
Also read | Ahmedabad Air India flight crash: What has AAIB’s preliminary report uncovered?
‘No adverse inference against pilot’
The Bench further noted that the preliminary report drew no adverse inference against the pilot. “We have gone through the report. There is no insinuation against the pilot at all… It just records a cockpit recorder which says one pilot enquires of the other: ‘Have you switched off the fuel switch?’, and he says ‘No’. So, there’s no question of the report apportioning blame,” Justice Bagchi remarked.
Emphasising that the objective of the probe was preventive and not punitive, Justice Bagchi remarked further, “In fact, the Rules and the AIB investigation are not to apportion blame. It’s to propose better performance and the avoidance of such accidents in the future. Where is the cause of action in this writ petition?”
According to the AAIB report, the fuel control switches of the aircraft “transitioned” to the “CUTOFF” position three seconds after it became airborne, cutting off fuel supply and causing both engines to shut down. The report had noted that the cockpit voice recording captured one pilot asking the other, “Why did he cut off?”, to which the colleague responded that he had not done so. It did not clarify whether the switch movement was inadvertent or deliberate, but identified the fuel cut-off as the immediate cause of the disaster.
‘Nasty reporting’
Mr. Sankaranarayanan further submitted that the broader concern pertained to the integrity of the inquiry, alleging that investigators had even posed inappropriate personal questions to the family. He also referred to a Wall Street Journal report which, citing unnamed government sources, had implied pilot negligence despite the confidentiality attached to the probe.
The Bench, however, dismissed the credibility of such reportage. “We are not bothered about what a foreign press (reports)… Then your suit should have been against The Wall Street Journal in an American court,” the judges said.
To this, Mr. Sankaranarayanan pointed out that the report had cited an Indian government source. “Doesn’t matter. This is by a foreign press whose insinuation is incorrect….This kind of nasty reporting only because they want to blame India…”, the Bench stressed.
Accordingly, the Bench issued notice on the plea and directed that it be heard along with a pending petition filed by the NGO Safety Matters Foundation on November 10. It also sought responses from the Centre and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to the petition.
Earlier, on September 22, while hearing the petition filed by the non-profit, the court had censured the “selective” release of the AAIB’s preliminary report and termed media reports attributing pilot error before the completion of the inquiry “irresponsible.” The judges had, however, clarified that they were not at that stage considering the public disclosure of any portion of the investigation.
The petition, jointly filed by Mr. Sabharwal and the Federation of Indian Pilots, alleged that the official investigation conducted by the AAIB and the DGCA is “defective” and that crucial technical evidence was either misinterpreted or ignored. It also noted that the aircraft’s Ram Air Turbine (RAT), an emergency power generator that automatically deploys when both the primary and backup electrical systems fail, was activated before the pilots made any control inputs. This, the plea argued, pointed to a possible electrical or software malfunction rather than pilot error.
It further alleged that the composition of the probe team, comprising officers from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and other State aviation authorities, raises serious concerns, as their procedures, oversight, and potential lapses are themselves under scrutiny.
“Moreover, the officers are placed under the control of the Director-General, AAIB, thereby creating a situation where the very entities responsible for regulating and overseeing civil aviation are effectively investigating themselves. This, combined with the involvement of Boeing and General Electric representatives, undermines the impartiality, credibility, and reliability of the report… ,” the plea said.
The petition also stressed that Captain Sabharwal had been flying for over 30 years without incident and logged more than 15,000 flight hours, making him one of the most experienced commanders on the Boeing 787 fleet. According to the petition, “the inquiry team, rather than undertaking a comprehensive technical investigation, appears to have disproportionately focused on the deceased pilots, who can no longer defend themselves, and overlooked plausible evidence of electrical, software, or design-level failures.”
Published – November 07, 2025 12:29 pm IST
