Plea in SC seeks independent probe into June 12 Air India crash

New Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI) A plea in the Supreme Court has sought a court-monitored probe into the June 12 Air India crash that killed 260 persons, including passengers, crew and civilians.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi tagged the plea with a pending matter raising a similar concern.

The top court asked the petitioner, Akhilesh Kumar Mishra, a research scholar at Delhi University and practising advocate, to serve the copy of the petition to the attorney general and the solicitor general.

Senior advocate Rajiv Shakdher, appearing for the petitioner, said his client was seeking a fair probe into the tragic incident.

The plea filed through advocate Shubham Upadhya sought the court's intervention to "ensure a fair, transparent, and court-monitored investigation" into the crash of Air India Flight 171 on June 12 in Ahmedabad.

It referred to a preliminary report published by the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) which impliedly attributed the crash to an abrupt shutdown of both engines caused by the transition of fuel control switches from run to cutoff within a one-second interval.

The plea, however, raised "inconsistencies and contradictions" and said, "Cockpit voice recording (CVR) captures the pilots expressing confusion over the engine cutoff, with one pilot asking the other, 'why did you cut off?' And the other replying, 'I didn't'." The aircraft was air bound only for a meagre 40 seconds and, therefore, the question asked by the pilot and the reply by the co-pilot were obvious in the common course of natural event, the plea added.

The plea claimed the pilots were "highly experienced" with a combined 19,000 flying hours, including over 9,000 hours on Boeing 787 aircraft and the experts have publicly stated that the fuel cutoff switches require deliberate action and cannot be flipped by mistake, ruling out pilot error.

"Despite these alarming indications of possible design malfunction, software fault, or systemic failure within the aircraft, Boeing has not been issued any directives or held accountable at any level in the preliminary report. The current trajectory of the investigation appears to unjustifiably shift blame onto the deceased pilots, who are unable to defend themselves, thereby allowing Boeing to evade liability, a pattern not unfamiliar in its corporate history," the plea said.

The petitioner further claimed that the preliminary investigation report of July 12 appeared to be "compromised" as the content of the same was released by the Wall Street Journal 20 hours prior to AAIB's release, undermining the "confidential and credible character".

On September 22, the top court while agreeing to examine a similar plea of NGO 'Safety Matters Foundation has termed as "unfortunate and irresponsible" the selective publication of a preliminary report on the crash which outlined lapses on the part of pilots and paved the way for a "media narrative".

The top court issued notices to the Centre and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on the aspect of an independent, fair and expeditious probe of the crash and said that an element of privacy and dignity of families of victims was also involved.

The top court had said such inquiries should happen promptly to quell rumours and speculations and avoid selective leakage of information to media, social media and other forms of media. PTI MNL MNL AMK AMK