'No more to defend themselves': Father of ill-fated AI 171 pilot approaches Supreme Court seeking court-monitored probe

Pushkaraj Sabharwal, 88, is the first petitioner followed by the Federation of Indian Pilots.

The petitioners claimed the preliminary investigation into the crash is "profoundly flawed" and said the probe team is focussing solely on the pilots, who are no more to defend themselves.

The petition says as quoted by NDTV, "The current approach of the investigation has resulted in a failure to adequately examine, or rule out, other more plausible technical and procedural factors."

"The petitioners emphasise that factual misdirection through selective disclosure, especially against crew who cannot defend themselves, impedes root cause discovery and threatens future flight safety-calling for a neutral judicial lens," it adds.

"Only a judicially monitored, expert-driven investigation, independent of the regulatory authorities, can ensure a thorough, transparent, and credible determination of the true causes of this tragedy, uphold accountability, and prevent a repeat of such catastrophic failures," the petition adds.

The petition had stressed on the fact that Captain Sabharwal had a career spanning 30 years with 15,638 hours of flying without any reported incident.

While Captain Sabharwal was the pilot-in-command of the crashed flight, Clive Kundar was the First Officer.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had called the selective reveal of the Air India plane crash probe report suggesting one of the pilots could be at fault "unfortunate".

However, Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu had cautioned on jumping into conclusions from the preliminary report of the probe into the fatal Air India crash.

"This is a preliminary report right now. From the ministry, we are analysing the report. I think it would be better if we can comment on it once the final report comes out. So we are coordinating with the AAIB also. We will be providing whatever support or resources the AAIB will be requiring... We are hoping that the final report comes out soon so that we can arrive at some conclusions," said the minister.

"I don't think we should jump into any conclusions on this. I truly believe we have the most wonderful workforce in terms of pilots and the crew in the whole world. I have to appreciate all the efforts the pilots and crew in this country are putting into aviation. They are the backbone and primary resource of civil aviation," he added.

The preliminary investigation conducted by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, or AAIB, on the June 12 Air India Boeing 787 flight crash has revealed that both engines of the plane had shut down mid-air within seconds of take-off.

The report said: "The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC and immediately thereafter, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off."

The report mentioned the cockpit voice recording showed one of the pilots is heard asking the other, 'why did he cutoff'.

"The other pilot responded that he did not do so," the report said.

The report further said: "As per the EAFR, the Engine 1 fuel cutoff switch transitioned from CUTOFF to RUN at about 08:08:52 UTC. The APU Inlet Door began opening at about 08:08:54 UTC, consistent with the APU Auto Start logic. Thereafter at 08:08:56 UTC the Engine 2 fuel cutoff switch also transitions from CUTOFF to RUN."

The report further said: "When fuel control switches are moved from CUTOFF to RUN while the aircraft is inflight, each engines full authority dual engine control (FADEC) automatically manages a relight and thrust recovery sequence of ignition and fuel introduction."

"The EGT was observed to be rising for both engines indicating relight. Engine 1’s core deceleration stopped, reversed and started to progress to recovery. Engine 2 was able to relight but could not arrest core speed deceleration and re-introduced fuel repeatedly to increase core speed acceleration and recovery. The EAFR recording stopped at 08:09:11 UTC," the report mentioned, sharing details about the aviation tragedy that left India shocked.

The report indicated that no immediate evidence was found that suggested there was a possible sabotage angle to the mishap.

On June 12, a London-bound Air India Boeing Dreamliner flight crashed into a medical college hostel soon after takeoff near the Ahmedabad airport, killing 260 people including on-ground people.

241 out of 242 onboard passengers and crew members were killed in the crash, which is one of the country's worst aviation tragedies.

One person, the passenger of seat No. 11A,  survived the crash miraculously.