India's Supreme Court has stated that the pilot of the Air India Flight AI-171, which crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad on June 12 and killed 241 passengers and crew in addition to 19 people on the ground, is not to blame for the tragedy. The court's observation came during the hearing of a petition seeking a judicially monitored investigation into the crash.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi assured Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, father of the late Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, who commanded the flight, that his son bore no blame. The judges emphasized that the public perception should not burden the family. "This was a tragic accident, but there is no indication that the pilot was at fault," the bench stated, referring to the investigation report that mentions only a routine cockpit exchange and no evidence of error. The court said that the purpose of the probe was preventive rather than punitive.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing the pilot's father, argued that the preliminary findings of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) were biased and incomplete. He alleged that the report appeared to attribute the cause of the crash to pilot error, while overlooking possible technical and systemic failures that warranted an independent probe. Sankaranarayanan criticized foreign media reports implying pilot negligence, saying they had shaped a false public opinion.
The court clarified that the AAIB's preliminary report contained no insinuation against the pilot. The report merely recorded one cockpit exchange concerning fuel control switches. According to the report, in an audio recording from the cockpit, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why he "cut off". The other pilot responds that he did not do so. The report did not mention which pilot made which comment.
The bench responded that claims of pilot error should be addressed legally in U.S. courts and reaffirmed that "no one in India believes the pilot is to blame". The court also advised the petitioners that any challenge to the ongoing probe must include a constitutional challenge to the investigation rules themselves. Notices were issued to the Centre and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), and the matter was scheduled for a further hearing next week, alongside a similar plea by the NGO Safety Matters Foundation. The court is willing to formally record that no fault could be assigned to the pilot.
