Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu unleashed a no-holds-barred defense of the ongoing probe into the catastrophic Air India Flight AI171 crash, insisting there's "zero manipulation or dirty business" tainting the process. The tragedy, one of the deadliest in the nation's aviation history, claimed 260 lives on June 12 when the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plummeted into Ahmedabad's bustling Sabarmati Riverfront buildings mere seconds after liftoff, engulfing residential towers and shops in a fireball that also snuffed out 19 lives on the ground.
Naidu, speaking on the fringes of a high-profile book launch in the capital, doubled down on the integrity of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB). "This is a rock-solid, by-the-book operation—no shortcuts, no shadows," he declared, urging patience as investigators grind toward a final report. "We're not rushing them for some half-baked history lesson. Let the facts emerge clean." The minister's words landed like a gut punch amid swirling whispers of bias, fueled by leaked snippets from the AAIB's July 12 preliminary findings that pointed to a heart-stopping cockpit blunder: fuel cutoff switches flipped from "RUN" to "CUTOFF" in a one-second frenzy, starving both engines of power and sparking pandemonium at 500 feet.
The cockpit voice recorder captured the pilots' gut-wrenching exchange—one frantically asking, "Why did you cut it off?" only for the other to snap back, "I didn't touch it!"—a detail that's haunted families and experts alike. But now, the probe's under siege from all sides. Just last week, the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), voicing 5,500 aviators, fired off a bombshell demand to regulators: ground every Boeing 787 Dreamliner in Indian skies for urgent electrical system inspections. "This isn't isolated—it's a ticking time bomb," FIP warned, citing a chilling midair emergency on October 5 when another Air India 787 en route to New York suffered a sudden power surge, forcing an emergency landing in Mumbai and evacuating 250 passengers unscathed but shaken.
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The pilots' outcry echoes a desperate plea from 91-year-old Pushkaraj Sabharwal, father of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, the 56-year-old co-pilot at the controls. In an August 29 letter to aviation brass, Pushkaraj blasted "selective leaks" painting his son as suicidal under "tremendous psychological pressure," a narrative he says has wrecked his health and smeared Sumeet's spotless 30-year career. "This violates his constitutional right to reputation under Article 21," he raged, calling for a full-throated judicial inquiry under the Aircraft Rules, 2017—not the AAIB's "compromised" solo act.
Even the Supreme Court waded in on September 22, slamming the "unfortunate and irresponsible" drip-feed of prelim details as a recipe for "media witch hunts" that scapegoat the dead. Justices decried how snippets spotlighting pilot lapses had spun a toxic narrative, sidelining broader questions like Boeing's role in the 787's glitch-prone fuel systems or Air India's maintenance lapses flagged in prior audits.
As the clock ticks toward what could be a months-long final AAIB verdict—potentially implicating everything from wiring gremlins to human error—the stakes couldn't be higher. Boeing, already reeling from global scrutiny, dispatched a team last month to pore over black box data, whispering of "anomalous switch feedback" that might absolve the crew. Air India, Tata-owned and under fire, has shelled out interim relief to victims' kin but faces a barrage of lawsuits demanding $500 million in damages.
Naidu's vow of transparency rings hollow to skeptics, with opposition MPs queuing up for a parliamentary showdown. "If it's so clean, why the stonewalling on independent oversight?" thundered Congress leader Jairam Ramesh. For the bereaved—hundreds still sifting ashes for closure—this isn't just bureaucracy; it's a battle for truth in a sky scarred by suspicion. Will the final report soar above the noise, or crash into more controversy? India's aviation watchdog holds the controls, but the turbulence is far from over.
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