Father of Air India crash pilot seeks independent probe from India’s top court
The 91-year-old father of Sumeet Sabharwal, the pilot who died in the June Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crash that killed 260 people, has petitioned India’s Supreme Court for an independent investigation into the disaster.
Pushkar Raj Sabharwal’s plea requests a panel of aviation experts led by a retired Supreme Court judge, arguing that the official investigation focused too heavily on pilot error and did not adequately examine technical or procedural causes, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
The request comes after two officials from India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) reportedly suggested that Sumeet Sabharwal had cut fuel to the plane’s engines after takeoff, a claim the government disputes, calling the AAIB investigation “very clean” and “very thorough.”
The preliminary AAIB report noted that the Dreamliner’s fuel engine switches flipped from run to cutoff almost simultaneously after takeoff, with cockpit recordings supporting the possibility that the captain had taken that action.
The Supreme Court has yet to hear the case, which was filed jointly by Sabharwal’s father and the Federation of Indian Pilots, representing around 5,000 members.
The move represents a major escalation in calls for accountability, amid concerns over the world’s deadliest aviation disaster in a decade.
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