Air India crash: Media reports hinting at ‘pilot error’ unfortunate, says SC

The Supreme Court on Monday called “unfortunate” media reports that insinuated that an error by a pilot caused the plane crash in Ahmedabad on June 12 that killed 275 persons, The Indian Express reported.

The bench of Justices Surya Kant and NK Singh issued notices seeking responses from the Centre, the director general of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau and the head of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

The court was hearing a public interest litigation seeking an independent and impartial investigation into the crash. The petition was filed by the Safety Matters Foundation, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to aviation safety.

The petition criticised the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau for releasing an incomplete preliminary report, claiming that it omitted critical information such as the full digital flight data recorder output, complete cockpit voice recorder transcripts with timestamps and the electronic aircraft fault recording data, Live Law reported.

In its preliminary report the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau found that moments after the aircraft took off, its fuel control switches transitioned from “RUN” to “CUTOFF” within a second of each other, because of which both engines shut down.

The report said that one of the pilots could be heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he shut down the fuel, in response to which the other pilot...

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