The father of the pilot whose Air India flight crashed in Ahmedabad earlier this year claimed that investigators had hinted his son was responsible for turning off the fuel soon after take-off.
Flight AI 171, a Boeing Dreamliner bound for London, crashed on 12 June in western India less than a minute after taking off. The crash, India’s deadliest aviation disaster in decades, killed 229 passengers, 12 crew members and 19 people on the ground. One passenger survived.
Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, 91, father of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, said officials from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau visited his Mumbai home on 30 August and that they insinuated his son had turned off the plane’s fuel switches.
Mr Sabharwal said he emailed the Federation of Indian Pilots last week saying that the officials visited him “under the pretext of offering condolences”, but went beyond their mandate.
“Speaking in innuendos and insinuating, on the basis of selective CVR interpretation and a so-called ‘layered voice analysis’, that my son had moved the fuel control switches from RUN to CUTOFF after take-off," he said in a 17 September mail, referring to the cockpit voice recorder, according to Reuters.
In its preliminary investigation report released in July, the bureau had noted that both of the airplane’s fuel switches moved from “run” to “cutoff” position within a second of each other moments after take-off, starving the engines.
The report noted confusion in the cockpit, but did not clarify whether the pilots had deliberately moved the switches.
Mr Sabharwal had criticised the report in a letter to the civil aviation ministry, just a day before the officials visited him.
He urged the ministry to open an additional investigation into the disaster, criticising what he said were "selective" releases of information by investigators that had led to speculation about his son's actions.
Mr Sabharwal said selective leaks from the preliminary report wrongly suggested his son was depressed and could have crashed the aircraft deliberately. Such speculation was “deficient, diversionary and discrepant” and violated his son’s fundamental right to reputation under India’s constitution, the Indian Express reported.
He also rejected claims that the late pilot’s divorce 15 years earlier or his mother’s death three years ago had affected his mental health.
Mr Sabharwal, a former official of India's aviation safety regulator, urged the pilots’ federation to call for a fair, transparent investigation.
The Federation of Indian Pilots condemned the AAIB officials’ visit to Mr Sabharwal and said it had “taken up the matter” with the minister of civil aviation.
“In any court of law, the judge or the prosecutor does not go to the house of victims and cross-question individuals," Captain CS Randhawa, the federation’s head, told Reuters.
The Independent has reached out to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau for a response.
Aishwarya Rai leads Bollywood fight against deepfakes in personality rights lawsuit
Indian police open murder case after mysterious death of British pensioner
Trump’s H-1B fee hike ignites fear and uncertainty in India’s $250bn tech industry
Air India crash: Top court asks Modi government on plea for independent probe
The Russian warplane making its last flight for India after 60 years of service
Crackdown on protests in remote Himalayan region after clashes turn deadly
