SC seeks Centre, DGCA reply 'for the limited purpose' on Air India crash probe

The Supreme Court on Monday sought response from the Centre and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) “for the limited purpose of ensuring a fair, impartial and expeditious investigation by an expert body” into the London-bound Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad on June 12.

A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and N.K. Singh, however, clarified that it was not at this stage considering the public disclosure of any part of the probe.

Safety Matters Foundation, an aviation safety non-government organisation led by former pilot Amit Singh, is seeking a court-monitored independent probe into the crash that killed 260 people, including 19 on the ground.


Counsel Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, told the court that the preliminary report issued by Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau was "incomplete, selective, and lacking in transparency, thereby undermining the credibility of the investigative process and the trust of the travelling public".

It stated that the preliminary report failed 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.

Bhushan contended that it had been more than 100 days since the crash occurred. However, all that was done so far was to release a preliminary report, which doesn't say what has happened or what may have happened and what precautions should be taken. The result is all passengers who are travelling on these Boeing planes are at risk today, he apprehended.

Questioning the composition of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s (AAIB) probe team, Bhushan said that three of its five members were serving officers of the DGCA. This created “a very serious conflict of interest” since the DGCA’s own role and potential lapses were under scrutiny, the counsel argued.

Justice Kant, however, said that the presence of serving officers did not imply bias. “Suppose it is found that some individual engineers are at fault, they may not protect,” he observed.

Bhushan also alleged that the preliminary report contained 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.