Reports that Air India crash investigation has been finalised are ‘incorrect and speculative’, says probe agency AAIB

“The Preliminary Report released earlier provided factual information available at that stage. The Final Investigation Report, containing conclusions and safety recommendations, will be published upon completion of the investigation in line with established international norms,” it said, while urging media organisations to “exercise restraint and avoid premature speculation”.

“Unverified reporting causes unnecessary public anxiety and undermines the integrity of an ongoing professional investigation,” the AAIB said.

Reports in Western news outlets have been indicating that the probe is purportedly zeroing in on deliberate action by one of the pilots; AAIB and the government have maintained that the probe is underway with all angles being investigated and nothing has been ruled out yet. AAIB’s latest clarification comes close on the heels of a report in Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which said that Indian investigators “are preparing to write in their final report that the plane crashed because one of the pilots turned off the two fuel switches”. The report, the newspaper said, is based on inputs from “Western sources”.

“In short, there was no technical defect. But human intervention was ‘almost certainly’ intentional . This is what Corriere learned from two Western sources familiar with the most recent discussions between New Delhi and Washington,” the news report, translated from Italian, said.

The preliminary report released by the AAIB a month after the June 12 crash had said that the accident occurred after both engines of the aircraft were starved of fuel as both its engine fuel control switches transitioned from ‘RUN’ to ‘CUTOFF’ position within a second of each other, moments after lift-off. The crash—the worst aviation disaster involving an Indian airline in decades—claimed 260 lives.

The preliminary report mentioned that in the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots was heard asking the other why he cut off the fuel, to which the other pilot responded saying he did not. There has been speculation on whether the switches were flipped by one of the pilots—inadvertently or otherwise—or whether the transition signal to the system was due to a technical, mechanical or software issue. The AAIB report did not state that either of the pilots physically flipped the switches, just that they transitioned from ‘RUN’ to ‘CUTOFF’. The investigation into the crash is ongoing, with the final probe report expected before the one-year anniversary of the crash.

“It’s currently unclear whether a detailed description of the incident will be provided, nor whether explicit attribution of responsibility will be forthcoming—the commander is the prime suspect. But for the American experts assisting the investigation, this is a welcome breakthrough, after weeks of heated discussions with an Indian side that has so far refused to acknowledge a human role in the tragedy,” the report by the Italian newspaper said.

The selective information presented in the report had many believing that it implicitly pointed a finger at the flight crew, particularly the flight’s captain Sumeet Sabharwal, a highly experienced pilot. Pilot suicide theories also started doing rounds, despite the government’s assurances that all aspects and possible causes will be thoroughly examined.

Pilot bodies, including the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), have raised strong objections to the preliminary report, so have some aviation experts. The FIP and Sumeet Sabharwal’s father Pushkar Raj Sabharwal also filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court, challenging the fairness of the AAIB probe, apart from demanding that the government should initiate a judicial investigation into the crash, instead of relying on the AAIB probe. Aviation safety experts have said that the possibility of catastrophic system failures should be investigated thoroughly.