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 said that he did not.

After a gap of about 10 seconds, the switches went back to the “RUN” position, in what appeared to be an attempt by the pilots to regain thrust in the engines. Subsequently, one of the engines progressed to recovery, and deceleration stopped. But deceleration could not be stopped on the second engine.

However, this led to speculation that pilot error or suicide may have been behind the crash.

According to the petition, the preliminary report ignored substantial evidence of potential system anomalies, including electrical faults, ram air turbine deployment, pre-existing aircraft defects and prematurely absolves the aircraft manufacturer of responsibility.

It also contended that the report violated Rule 2(25) of the 2017 Aircraft Investigation of Accidents and Incidents Rules, which requires that preliminary reports disclose all early-stage data, The Indian Express reported.

The court, while acknowledging the petitioner’s concerns, declined to issue directions for the investigation material, including the flight data, to be immediately released.

On June 12, Air India’s Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, which was en route to London’s Gatwick airport from Ahmedabad, crashed just 33 seconds after taking off.

There were 242 people aboard the aircraft. One passenger survived with “impact injuries”.

Thirty-four persons were also killed on the ground after the plane crashed into the hostel building of the BJ Medical College and Hospital in Ahmedabad, according to Air India.

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