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www.newsindiatimes.com – that’s all you need to know News India Times (September 27, 2025 - October 3, 2025) October 3, 2025 26 India Air India Crash: Grieving Father Of Captain Says Investigators Insinuated Son Cut Fuel T he father of the crashed Air India flight’s captain said officials from India’s accident investigation bureau visited him last month and implied his son cut the fuel to the plane’s engines after takeoff, correspondence obtained by Reuters showed. Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, 91, emailed the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) last week to say that Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) officials had visited him at home on August 30 “under the pretext of offering condo- lences”, and implied his son, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, was the one who moved the fuel switches. “During this interaction … they went beyond their mandate – speaking in innuendos and insinuating, on the basis of selective CVR (cockpit voice recorder) inter- pretation and a so-called ‘layered voice analysis’, that my son had moved the fuel control switches from RUN to CUTOFF after take-off,” the September 17 email said. The day before the AAIB visit, he wrote to the civil aviation ministry – in a letter dated August 29 – to request India’s government open an additional investigation into the deadly crash, criticising what he said were investiga- tors’ “selective” releases of information, which had led to speculation about his son’s actions. The crash of Air India flight 171 in June, moments after it took off from Ahmedabad, killed 241 of the 242 people on board the Boeing Dreamliner, as well as 19 on the ground. A preliminary investigation report by the AAIB showed the plane’s fuel engine switches had almost simultane- ously flipped from run to cutoff just after takeoff. The AAIB did not respond to Reuters queries. On Thursday, a Reuters reporter seeking comment was stopped by building security and denied access to Push- kar Raj Sabharwal’s home in Mumbai. The FIP condemned the AAIB visit 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 C.S. Randhawa, the organisation’s president, told Reuters in a text message. India’s civil aviation ministry and Air India did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. ‘ INTEGRITY’ Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, himself a former official of India’s aviation safety regulator, in his email to the pilots federation requested its support for a fair, transparent investigation. The AAIB’s preliminary report in July said one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he had cut off the fuel. “The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report said, without identifying who said what. A source briefed on U.S. officials’ early assessment of evidence in July told Reuters the cockpit recording of dialogue between the two pilots supported the view that Captain Sabharwal had cut the flow of fuel to the engines. The first officer was at the controls of the Boeing 787 and asked the captain why he had moved the fuel switches into a position that cut off supply to the engines and requested that he restore the fuel flow, the source told Reuters. “My son’s dignity and the integrity of due process must be preserved,” Pushkar Raj Sabharwal wrote in the email to the pilots federation, calling the investigator’s alleged remarks “procedurally improper and professionally inde- fensible.” In July, the AAIB urged the public and media to refrain from spreading “premature narratives” that risked under- mining the investigation’s integrity. In his letter to the ministry, Sabharwal’s father said the “speculation” had caused him personal anguish, adding another investigation by the government would help in “safeguarding the truth and ensuring the safety of future passengers.” This week, India’s Supreme Court asked the govern- ment to respond to a separate public interest litigation seeking an independent investigation into the crash. -Reuters By Aditya Kalra, Lisa Barrington and Arpan Chaturvedi PHOTO:REUTERS/Hemanshi Kamani/File Photo Father of Sumeet Sabharwal, a pilot who died when an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft crashed during take-off from an airport, offers prayers as he stands next to the body of his son in Mumbai, India, June 17, 2025. India Signs $7 Billion Deal For Homegrown Tejas Fighter Jets I ndia signed a deal worth 623.70 billion rupees ($7.03 billion) on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025, to buy indig- enous fighter aircraft from state warplane maker Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) in the effort to modernise its armed forces. The acquisition comes in the face of the growing military strength and influence in South Asia of neigh- bour China, including defence ties with India’s arch-rival Pakistan. The order for 97 home-grown fighters of the Tejas Mk-1A variety, envisages completion of deliveries over a span of six years from financial year 2027-28, the defence ministry said in a statement. “The supply of these aircraft by HAL would enhance operational capability of the Indian Air Force to continue their unhindered operations and strengthen defence preparedness,” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said in a post on X. The news came a day ahead of the last flight of the Indian Air Force’s Russian-origin MiG-21 fighters. After that India’s fleet of mainly ex-Soviet fighter aircraft will shrink to 29 from an approved strength of 42, a matter of frustration for officials after a bitter military conflict with Pakistan in May. Thursday’s deal is a follow-on order for the advanced Mk-1A version of the Tejas group of fighters, powered by General Electric engines. The government signed a deal with HAL in 2021 for 83 such aircraft but delivery of that order has yet to begin, as the warplane maker blamed GE for being slow in provid- ing the engines. GE has said the delay followed challenges in restarting the production line and re-engaging global supply chains for the engine after the COVID-19 pandemic. It delivered the first engine for the Mk-1A fighter in March this year and Indian officials have said they expect production and deliveries to stabilise in the current fiscal year. Thursday’s order would take India’s total Tejas fleet to 220, and officials expect to sign a follow-on deal with GE for additional engines. -Reuters By Shivam Patel and Hritam Mukherjee PHOTO:REUTERS/AmitDave/File Photo PHOTO:REUTERS/AmitDave/File Photo Indian Air Force (IAF)’s light combat aircraft “Tejas” fires a missile during “Vayu Shakti”, or Air Power exercise in Pokhran, Rajasthan state, India, February 16, 2019. he logo of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is pictured in a stall at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Trade Show at Gandhinagar, India, January 11, 2024.