{"id":13323,"date":"2025-10-16T08:44:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T06:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/father-of-pilot-in-air-india-crash-asks-top-court-for-independent-probe\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:26:19","slug":"father-of-pilot-in-air-india-crash-asks-top-court-for-independent-probe","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/father-of-pilot-in-air-india-crash-asks-top-court-for-independent-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"Father of pilot in Air India crash asks top court for independent probe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The lawsuit represents a major escalation of protests by the father and a pilots&#8217; union against the Indian government&#8217;s handling of the world&#8217;s worst aviation disaster in a decade, which came soon after takeoff in the western city of Ahmedabad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The plea by the father, Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, for an investigation by a panel of aviation experts headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, comes weeks after he criticised the government investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">He said two officials from India&#8217;s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) who visited him had implied that his son, Sumeet Sabharwal, cut the fuel to the plane&#8217;s engine after take-off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The government has denied such accusations, calling the investigation &#8220;very clean&#8221; and &#8220;very thorough&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">On October 11, the father told the court the investigation team appeared to &#8220;predominantly focus on the deceased pilots, while failing to examine or eliminate other more plausible technical and procedural causes,&#8221; said one of the sources who saw his filing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">It also asked for the government investigation to be closed and handed to a new panel headed by a retired Supreme Court judge that includes aviation experts, said the two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13324,"template":"default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-13323","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The 91-year-old father of the Air India pilot in a June crash that killed 260 has asked India's Supreme Court to order an independent investigation that takes into account causes other than pilot action, sources familiar with the matter said||The 91-year-old father of the Air India pilot in a June crash that killed 260 has asked India's Supreme Court to order an independent investigation that takes into account causes other than pilot action, sources familiar with the matter said","published_date":"2025-10-16 00:00:00||2025-10-16 00:00:00","news_description":"The 91-year-old father of the Air India pilot in a June crash that killed 260 has asked India's Supreme Court to order an independent investigation that takes into account causes other than pilot action, sources familiar with the matter said||The 91-year-old father of the Air India pilot in a June crash that killed 260 has asked India's Supreme Court to order an independent investigation that takes into account causes other than pilot action, sources familiar with the matter said","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18499,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13323\/revisions\/18499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=13323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}