A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) before the Supreme Court has sought an independent probe under its “supervision and control” into the June 12 Air India Boeing Dreamliner crash in Ahmedabad, in which 260 people were killed.
The plea by Safety Matters Foundation, an aviation safety NGO founded by Captain Amit Singh, says that the preliminary report issued by Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is “incomplete, selective, and lacking in transparency, thereby undermining the credibility of the investigative process and the trust of the travelling public”.
The plea said the report fails to comply with Rule 2(25) of the Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules, 2017, which states that such a report serves the purpose of disseminating all data obtained during the early stages of the investigation.
“Instead, the report contains selective disclosures, such as paraphrased references to cockpit voice recordings without timestamps, full transcripts, or corroborative context. This selective presentation creates a misleading impression and undermines transparency…such selective disclosure of partial information has the effect of shaping a biased public perception, one that tends to attribute the cause of the accident to pilot error while absolving the manufacturer and the airline of potential responsibility,” the plea added.
The 91-year-old father of Sumeet Sabharwal, one of the pilots of the Air India aircraft, recently demanded that the central government initiate a formal investigation into the crash, alleging that the AAIB’s preliminary probe report was “deficient, diversionary and discrepant” and had tarnished his son’s reputation.
In its plea, the NGO has alleged that by releasing “incomplete and unverified extracts of the cockpit voice recording, the Respondent has created an information environment that unfairly tilts the narrative in favour of the operator and manufacturer, contrary to the principles of impartiality, transparency, and public accountability that must govern air accident investigations”.
Singh said he was filing the petition for enforcement of rights guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India and also rights guaranteed under Articles 14 and 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India.
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The plea seeks directions to authorities “to make publicly available the complete data retrieved from the crashed Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner… appoint independent experts to monitor the investigation” saying the “selective and incomplete disclosure of critical information, coupled with the premature attribution of pilot error while overlooking systemic faults, has resulted in a continuing violation of Article 21 and also Articles 14 and 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India”.
Singh said the present case concerns “not merely the investigation of an isolated accident” but the “preservation of public faith in the safety of civil aviation in India”.
“Each passenger who boards an aircraft does so with the legitimate expectation that the State has discharged its duty to ensure that the skies are safe, and that if a tragedy does occur, it will be investigated with transparency, independence, and integrity. When hundreds of lives are lost in a single catastrophic event, the nation not only mourns the dead but also looks to the investigative process as a source of truth, accountability, and assurance that such a disaster will not recur,” the plea stated.
“The stakes, therefore, are not limited to the families of the victims but extend to every citizen who relies on aviation as a mode of transport. The importance of an impartial and comprehensive inquiry in such circumstances cannot be overstated, for it touches upon the right to life, dignity, and safety under Article 21, and upon the confidence of the travelling public in the institutions meant to protect them,” it added.
