New Delhi: The Supreme Court, on Monday, issued notice to the Centre, the director general of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on a plea seeking an independent, expeditious and court-monitored probe into the June 12, 2025, crash of an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner in Ahmedabad that killed 260 people.
The bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice N K Singh also observed that reports attributing the crash to ‘pilot error’ by a section of the media, based on a preliminary report by the AAIB, was ‘irresponsible’ and ‘unfortunate’.
“If tomorrow someone irresponsibly says pilot A or B was at fault, the family will suffer… What happens if the final inquiry report later finds no fault,” the court pointed out.
“Unfortunately, sometimes when such a tragedy happens, the benefit is taken by rival aircraft companies,” the bench added.
“Somebody may start blaming the staff of the airline… Nobody should be allowed to create rumours or misrepresent the situation,” the court observed.
“Issue notice to the respondents for the limited purpose of ensuring a free, fair, impartial, independent and expeditious investigation by an expert body,” it then ordered.
The bench was hearing a plea by Safety Matters Foundation, an aviation safety NGO. Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, also sought to make public the details of the flight data recorder, but the court expressed reluctance and stressed the need for maintaining confidentiality till the regular inquiry is taken to its logical conclusion.
The plea stated that “the Preliminary Report issued by” the AAIB “is incomplete, selective, and lacking in transparency, thereby undermining the credibility of the investigative process and the trust of the travelling public.”
“The Preliminary 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,” it was submitted.
“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 petition added.
“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,” it further claimed.
