The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Center and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in response to the Air India pilot’s father’s plea for a judicial inquiry into the Ahmedabad air crash.
The pilot cannot be blamed, you should not bear the burden, the apex court told the 91-year-old father of the pilot who died along with 250 people in the plane crash on June 12, news agency PTI reported.
The court order came in response to a petition by Pushkaraj Sabharwal, whose son Sumeet Sabharwal served as the pilot-in-command of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) has also filed a petition with the same demand.
Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi told senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan appearing for petitioner Pushkaraj Sabharwal that the family should not bear the burden of any perceived innuendo.
“This is an extremely unfortunate accident. But you should not bear this burden that your son is blamed. We can always make it clear that no one is to blame for the tragedy and especially the pilot,” the bench said, according to legal news website LiveLaw.
The claimants went to court after the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) published its preliminary report in July, which said the fuel supply to both engines had been cut off shortly after take-off.
The two fuel control switches were moved to the “cutoff” position in rapid succession. Although the switches were turned back on about 10 seconds later, the engines had already shut down, leading to the crash, the report said.
The Supreme Court told the late pilot’s father that none of the 1.42 million Indians believed there was any fault with the pilot. The court agreed to hear a petition seeking an independent investigation next week, along with a pending lawsuit by the nonprofit organization Safety Matters.
“We are a country with 142 million inhabitants and none of them believe that the blame must fall on the pilot. Whatever the cause of the tragedy could be, it is not the pilots,” the court said.
(With input from LiveLaw)
