US officials fear Indian authorities are trying to cover up the deadly
Air India plane crash, which killed 260 people.
Just one passenger survived when Flight 171 crashed seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad in western India in June, killing
241 travellers and crew, along with 19 people on the ground.
US investigators believe the evidence points to Sumeet Sabharwal, the flight’s captain, deliberately crashing the plane, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Data downloaded from the Boeing Dreamliner’s black box allegedly shows someone inside the coughpit moved the switches to cut off the engine’s fuel supply.
The captain did not then attempt to raise the nose of the aircraft before the crash, the evidence reportedly shows.
Some US officials fear the Indian government will seek to obstruct the findings and instead blame mechanical faults with the plane.
The plane crashed 11 seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad airport on June 12 Credit: Vijay Patani/AFP
However, Indian observers believe the US is overlooking flaws in American-made planes, although no Boeing Dreamliner has ever suffered a fatal crash before.
India’s top court this month said
Sabharwal was not to blame for the disaster.
Sabharwal’s father has said his son has been the target of a “character assassination” despite his “unblemished 30-year career” as a pilot.
People gathered near a memorial banner to pay tribute to the flight’s captain, Sumeet Sabharwal Credit: Divyakant Solanki/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The joint investigation between India and the US, which is involved because the Boeing was manufactured in the US and approved by American safety regulators, has been marred by mutual suspicion between officials.
GVG Yugandhar, who leads India’s aircraft accident investigation bureau, is said to have told US officials they were “not a third world country” and “can do anything you all can do”.
Indian authorities are accused of failing to prioritise gathering and analysing data from the black box, although this has been disputed by a figure familiar with India’s investigation process.
American investigators were banned from taking photos of the wreckage, some of which was moved before they could examine it, sources said.
Two American black-box specialists who landed in New Delhi in June were warned not to accompany Indian authorities to a remote laboratory to analyse flight data and voice recorders from the coughpit.
Flight recorders retrieved from the wreckage Credit: Amit Kumar
Jennifer Homendy, the chairman of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), is said to have been worried about the safety of US personnel and equipment given the risk of terrorism or military conflict in the region.
Indian officials had pushed to analyse the black box in the small town of Korwa, which they deemed better equipped and located away from media attention.
Ms Homendy argued that authorities should download data from either their laboratory in New Delhi or work in the NTSB’s Washington facilities.
In the end, Indian authorities agreed to analyse the data from the New Delhi site after the US threatened to pull their support from the investigation.
Ms Homendy’s calls to her counterpart, Mr Yugandhar, for updates are said to have gone unanswered.
