The father of the pilot whose Air India flight crashed in Ahmedabad earlier this year claimed that investigators had hinted his son was responsible for turning off the fuel soon after take-off.

Flight AI 171, a Boeing Dreamliner bound for London, crashed on 12 June in western India less than a minute after taking off. The crash, India’s deadliest aviation disaster in decades, killed 229 passengers, 12 crew members and 19 people on the ground. One passenger survived.

Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, 91, father of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, said officials from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau visited his Mumbai home on 30 August and that they insinuated his son had turned off the plane’s fuel switches.

Mr Sabharwal said he emailed the Federation of Indian Pilots last week saying that the officials visited him “under the pretext of offering condolences”, but went beyond their mandate.

“Speaking in innuendos and insinuating, on the basis of selective CVR interpretation and a so-called ‘layered voice analysis’, that my son had moved the fuel control switches from RUN to CUTOFF after take-off,” he said in a 17 September mail, referring to the cockpit voice recorder, according to Reuters.

In its preliminary investigation report released in July, the bureau had noted that both of the airplane’s fuel switches moved from “run” to “cutoff” position within a second of each other moments after take-off, starving the engines.

The report noted confusion in the cockpit, but did not clarify whether the pilots had deliberately moved the switches.

Mr Sabharwal had criticized the report in a letter to the civil aviation ministry, just a day before the officials visited him.

He urged the ministry to open an additional investigation into the disaster, criticizing what he said were “selective” releases of information by investigators that had led to speculation about his son’s actions.

Mr Sabharwal said selective leaks from the preliminary report wrongly suggested his son was depressed and could have crashed the aircraft deliberately. Such speculation was “deficient, diversionary and discrepant” and violated his son’s fundamental right to reputation under India’s constitution, the Indian Express reported.

He also rejected claims that the late pilot’s divorce 15 years earlier or his mother’s death three years ago had affected his mental health.

Mr Sabharwal, a former official of India’s aviation safety regulator, urged the pilots’ federation to call for a fair, transparent investigation.

The Federation of Indian Pilots condemned the AAIB officials’ visit to Mr Sabharwal and said it had “taken up the matter” with the minister of civil aviation.

“In any court of law, the judge or the prosecutor does not go to the house of victims and cross-question individuals,” Captain CS Randhawa, the federation’s head, told Reuters.

The Independent has reached out to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau for a response.

Credits: Air India

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The A380 is British Airways’ biggest plane, and training captains train other pilots on the aircraft (which is why he spent a lot of time at headquarters, rather than at at the airport). We can assume he was among British Airways’ best paid pilots, raking in £170,000 per year, or more.

According to the story, the pilot was caught on CCTV, stealing food and drinks from the self-serve “pavement cafe” at British Airways’ Waterside headquarters. The cafe sells things like sausage rolls, sandwiches, chips, cookies, coffee, etc. The idea is that you’re supposed to then check yourself out and pay, but this captain was found to be skipping the payment process, and just treating the cafe as his pantry.

This captain got off with a warning for his behavior

The British Airways captain was reportedly called into a manager’s office, and asked why he repeatedly took things from the cafe without paying. Interestingly, it sounds like the captain simply got off with a warning, and no serious action was taken against him. As one insider described it:

Indeed, I think that’s very true. If the consistent theft was from a flight attendant, they would’ve almost certainly been terminated, even if it had happened fewer times. Meanwhile because this was a senior captain (and one involved in training), he just received a warning.

Bottom line

A British Airways Airbus A380 training captain has been caught repeatedly stealing food and drinks at the carrier’s headquarters. The building has a self-serve cafe that seemingly uses the honor system, and patrons are supposed to check themselves out and pay.

However, it seems there was quite a bit of theft there, causing the company to take action. Among those caught was a British Airways A380 captain, who was found to be repeatedly taking items without paying. Go figure he only got a warning, while I imagine that lower rank employees would’ve gotten much more severe punishment.

Credits: British Airways

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