Aviation Minister K Ram Mohan Naidu issued a fresh clarification about the ongoing Air India plane crash probe on Tuesday — contending that there was no “manipulation” or “dirty business” underway. The remarks came days after the father of flight captain Sumeet Sabharwal complained about the actions of investigators. The Federation of Indian Pilots has also demanded a judicial probe into the crash and called the ongoing AAIB investigation “untenable” in a strongly-worded letter.
‘There is no manipulation’
“There is no manipulation, or there is no dirty business happening in the investigation. It is a very clean and very thorough process that we are doing, according to the rules that have been set up. We are going to ensure that the commitment will be maintained,” Naidu said during an interview with India Today.
He also insisted that the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau was maintaining a “thorough, transparent, and independent” approach — urging everyone to wait for the final report rather than commenting on the preliminary analysis. The top official also said that AAIB had so far placed all known facts on record and would take some time to release a final update.
“The final report is going to take some time. The AIB is doing a very transparent and independent study on the final report. We do not want to pressure them into coming up with some hasty report. So they are going to take the necessary time for it,” he told the media earlier on Tuesday.
AAIB under scrutiny?
The London-bound Air India flight had crashed mere minutes after taking off from Ahmedabad airport on June 12 — killing 260 people and leaving many others injured. The interim report released by AAIB in July showed that the fuel engine switches had almost simultaneously flipped from ‘run’ to ‘cutoff’ soon after the Boeing aircraft took off. It also made note of a cockpit recording of dialogue between the two pilots — where they can be heard wondering why the fuel supply to both engines was cut.
The report has come under fire from several quarters with many interpreting it as a hint that pilot actions were the primary cause of the tragedy. 91-year-old Pushkar Raj Sabharwal had also sent a complaint to the pilots’ union last month after investigators made an unsolicited visit to his house on August 30 under the ‘pretext’ of offering condolences. He said they had made damaging “insinuations” based on a “selective” cockpit voice recorder interpretation and a “layered voice analysis” to suggest Sumeet Sabharwal deliberately cut fuel to the engines.
The pilot group had subsequently termed the visit and interaction a “gross and calculated overreach of the AAIB’s mandate”. Its letter to the Ministry of Civil Aviation also alleged that some of the bureau’s actions and selective leaks had “fundamentally and irrevocably compromised the integrity, impartiality, and legality” of the investigation process. The Supreme Court has also come down heavily against the probe agency — noting on September 22 that the selective publication of a preliminary report which outlined lapses on the part of pilots and paved the way for a “media narrative” was “unfortunate and irresponsible”.