‘Nobody Believes It Was the Pilot’s Fault,’ SC Tells Grieving Father of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal

Supreme Court of India on Friday consoled the 88-year-old father of fallen Air India captain Sumeet Sabharwal, asserting that "nobody in the country believes it was the pilot's fault" in the catastrophic June 12, 2025, crash of Flight AI171 near Ahmedabad airport. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, bound for London Gatwick with 242 souls aboard, plummeted just 32 seconds after takeoff, slamming into B.J. Medical College's hostel and claiming 260 lives—229 passengers, 12 crew, and 19 on the ground—marking aviation's deadliest decade opener.

The bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, hearing a 267-page writ petition filed October 10 by Mumbai resident Pushkaraj Sabharwal and the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), issued notices to the Centre, DGCA, and AAIB, demanding a judicially monitored probe led by a retired Supreme Court judge and aviation experts. "It's extremely unfortunate, but you shouldn't carry this burden—nobody can blame him," the court told the elder Sabharwal, whose son, the Veteran Pilot-in-Command with 15,600 flight hours, perished in the inferno. The judges noted the AAIB's July 12 preliminary report made "no insinuations against the pilot," dismissing concerns over a Wall Street Journal piece as grounds for a U.S. court filing instead.

Petitioners lambasted the AAIB report as "profoundly flawed," charging it scapegoated the deceased crew—unable to defend themselves—while ignoring glaring technical red flags like the premature deployment of the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) emergency generator, signaling electrical or digital glitches in the Common Core System (CCS). They highlighted "perverse inconsistencies," such as both fuel control switches flipping from RUN to CUTOFF in one second during takeoff—a feat deemed "implausible" under duress—before reverting, suggesting automated corruption over human error. "This reverses causation, blaming pilots for symptoms of system failure," the plea argued, urging a neutral lens to unearth root causes and safeguard future flights.

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The tragedy, the first fatal hull loss for a 787 since 2011, prompted Air India to ground 83 wide-body flights for safety checks, retiring the AI171 number amid global scrutiny of Boeing's fleet. With one lone survivor amid the wreckage and fireballs that scorched nearby structures, the crash's probe—joined by Boeing, NTSB, and UK experts—now faces renewed pressure for transparency, as the court tagged this plea to another pending matter for joint hearing on November 10, vowing to pierce the veil of selective blame.

As Pushkaraj Sabharwal, voice trembling with grief, seeks closure for his son's unblemished legacy, the Supreme Court's empathy echoes a nation's sentiment: heroes aren't scapegoats. This ruling could redefine aviation accountability, ensuring technical truths eclipse hasty human judgments in the skies over India.

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