Ahmedabad: Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, captain of ill-fated Air India flight AI171 that crashed soon after taking off for London from the Ahmedabad airport on June 12, 2025, may have been trying to control the aircraft till he died.
The relative of three victims of the deadly air crash that killed 260 people, who gained access to the morgue, revealed that he witnessed scenes he “can never unsee”, including the body of the plane’s captain still clutching the aircraft’s steering column.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into the hostel building of BJ Medical College in Ahmedabad within seconds of takeoff. Nineteen people on the ground were among those killed. Only one passenger had a miraculous escape.
Romin Vohra’s aunt Yashmin, his brother Parvez, who worked for Amazon in London, and his three-year-old niece, were among the victims.
Vohra said he managed to gain entry into the mortuary because he had worked as a pathology lab assistant at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic and still knew people there. He hoped to identify the remains of his relatives, he told Daily Mail.
Many of the bodies had been laid side by side on the floor. Vohra recalled seeing severed heads and limbs, a charred mother with her child still in her arms, and the skull of a little girl that he desperately tried to match with a photograph of his niece.
However, there was one image that stood apart from the rest, he said, as reported by India Today.
He saw the body of Captain Sabharwal, the pilot in command of the ill-fated flight, placed separately in a corner of the mortuary, Vohra claimed.
“He was still in a sitting position,” Vohra told the Mail. “His back was burnt, but the front of his body was absolutely perfect.”
The captain’s white uniform shirt, complete with four gold stripes on the shoulders, dark tie and trousers, appeared intact. Even his shoes were still on, he said.
Sabharwal was allegedly still holding on to the aircraft’s double-handled yoke — the steering column used to control the plane — which may have broken off during impact or while rescuers removed him from the cockpit, Vohra said.
A doctor who was purportedly present in the mortuary also backed Vohra’s account, the Mail reported.
The detail, if accurate, could support the argument that Captain Sabharwal was trying to save the aircraft until the final seconds, aviation experts believe.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), in its preliminary report released on July 12 last year, said the fuel supply to both engines were cut-off within a second of each other shortly after takeoff, leading to confusion inside the cockpit.
The cockpit voice recorder picked up one pilot asking “Why did you cut off?” and the other replying: “I didn’t.”
This portion of the report triggered speculation that pilot error may have contributed to the crash.
Captain Sabharwal’s father and pilots’ bodies challenged this though. His 88-year-old father Pushkaraj Sabharwal, along with the Federation of Indian Pilots, approached the Supreme Court alleging the report was “profoundly flawed” and unfairly focused on pilots who were no longer alive to defend themselves.
The Supreme Court also described such a narrative as “unfortunate”.
The government and civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu have also urged people not to jump to conclusions. Naidu said that here has been no manipulation in the investigation and asked people to wait for the final report, which is expected next month.
