The Supreme Court on Friday verbally observed that no blame could be placed on the pilot who was among the 275 persons who died in the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad on June 12, The Hindu reported.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi clarified that no official report had held the cockpit crew responsible for the accident.

It added that it was prepared to record this position formally, as it agreed to hear a petition filed by 91-year-old Pushkarraj Sabharwal, the father of late Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, the pilot-in-command.

On October 10, Pushkarraj Sabharwal and the Federation of Indian Pilots moved the Supreme Court seeking a court-monitored judicial inquiry into the crash.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, which was en route to London’s Gatwick airport from Ahmedabad, crashed 33 seconds after taking off.

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

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

Appearing for the petitioners, advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan argued that the preliminary findings of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau were “biased and incomplete”, and appeared to suggest pilot error while ignoring possible technical and systemic failures that warranted an independent probe, The Hindu reported.

Responding to the petitioner’s concern that his son was being unfairly blamed, the bench said it was “an extremely unfortunate accident”. It verbally observed that “nobody, and especially the pilot, can be blamed for the tragedy”.

The judges noted that the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s preliminary report did not make any adverse findings against the pilot.

“We have gone through the report,” The Hindu quoted the bench as saying. “There is no insinuation against the pilot at all…Whatever could be the reason for the tragedy, it is not the pilots.”

Bagchi added that the purpose of the investigation was preventive and not punitive.

“There is just a mention of the cockpit recorder where one pilot asks your son whether he turned off a switch and your son answers in negative,” the newspaper quoted Bagchi as saying. “That is all there is in the report. The main purpose of the investigation is to ensure such incidents do not recur.”

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 “cut off” 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.

The petition filed by the captain’s father had also alleged a breach of confidentiality, claiming that cockpit voice recordings were allegedly leaked to The Wall Street Journal before the official release of the findings, fuelling a “malicious media campaign” that harmed Sumeet Sabharwal’s posthumous reputation.

On Friday, the bench dismissed the concerns about such media coverage, The Hindu reported.

“With respect, you should have filed a suit against The Wall Street Journal in an American court,” the newspaper quoted the bench as saying. “Your angst is understandable, but there is a clear incongruity between public perception and the factual position.”

The court issued notice on the plea, directing that it be heard along with another petition filed by a non-government organisation on Monday, and sought responses from the Union government and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on the request for an independent probe.

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