Air India crash probe continues as Captain’s final words before he left home revealed

The captain from the fatal Air India crash had made a strange plea as he left home to a security guard who he spoke to before the plane went down.

The captain from the fatal Air India plane crash had made a strange plea as he left home to a security guard who was at his apartment complex.

According to The Telegraph UK, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal told guard Sunil Lokhande: “Please, take care of papa. I will be back soon.”

Lokhande said: “I can’t forget that last moment, when he ran his hand through his hair, like he always did, and said, ‘How are you Mr Lokhande. Please, take care of papa, and I will be back soon.

“He smiled and went away. You’d never guess he carried any sadness inside.”

His former colleague Neil Pais also told The Telegraph: “He was actually considering early retirement in the next couple of years.

“His father is very old, and he was going to look after him full time. That was the plan.”

It comes after investigators are looking at the senior pilot’s final movements in the cockpit.

A black box recording between two pilots revealed the captain turned off switches that controlled fuel flowing to the plane’s two engines.

First Officer Clive Kunder who was flying the plane asked Captain Sabharwal why he moved the switches to the “cut-off” position after it climbed off the runway, sources close to the US assessment of the disaster told the Wall Street Journal.

Captain Sumeet Sabharwal had 8,200 hours of flying experience. Picture: Supplied

The Journal reported that while First Officer Kunder expressed “surprise” swiftly followed by “panic,” Captain Sabharwal “remained calm” as the tragedy unfolded.

India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said in its preliminary report that one pilot asked the other why he moved the switches, while the other denied it.

The report did not say if the switches were deliberately or accidentally turned off.

Captain Sabharwal, 56, was the lead pilot when the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner went down in Ahmedabad on June 12, killing 241 people on board and leaving just one survivor.

The switches were moved one second apart, according to the report.

Then, 10 seconds later, both switches were turned back on.

The crash has prompted India and Singapore to order their airlines to examine fuel switches on several Boeing models with South Korea set to do the same after the devices came under scrutiny following last month’s crash of an Air India jet killed 260 people.

Singapore said it detected no problems with switches on its airlines’ Boeing aircraft in the wake of a preliminary Indian-issued report found the devices flipped from run position to cut-off shortly after takeoff.

First Officer Clive Kunder was “surprised” and “panicked” in the cockpit. Picture: Supplied

India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued the order Monday to investigate the locking feature on the fuel control switches of several Boeing models, including 787s and 737s.

The order came after Boeing notified operators that the fuel switch locks on its jets were safe.

But it was in line with a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) issued by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2018, which recommended inspection of the locks to ensure they could not be moved accidentally.

Several Indian and international airlines have already begun their own inspections of fuel switches.

Medical records for one of the pilots were also reportedly turned over to investigators amid concern he’d been suffering from depression and other mental health issues.

Captain Sabharwal, who had more than 15,000 flying hours under his belt at the time of the tragedy, had taken medical leave in recent years due to apparent mental health woes, the Telegraph reported.

“I have heard from several Air India pilots who told me he had some depression and mental health issues,” said Mohan Ranganathan, a leading Indian aviation safety expert.

“He had taken time off from flying in the last three to four years. He had taken medical leave for that.”

He had also taken bereavement leave following the 2022 death of his mother and had recently been weighing retirement to care for his ageing father, according to the outlet.

The pilot, who underwent a medical exam in September last year, would have been given clearance to return to work, Ranganathan said.

“He must have been medically cleared by the company [Air India] doctors. They must have given the clearance certificate,” he said.

Smoke billows from a residential area after Air India flight AI171 crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12. Picture: AFP

The tailpiece of the plane in a building at the crash site. Picture: Central Industrial Security Force / AFP

The CEO of Air India urged his staff to not jump to conclusions after the preliminary report was released which suggested it may have been caused by pilot error.

Air India declined to comment on reports about Sabharwal’s mental health.

But a spokesperson for the airline’s parent company, Tata Group, confirmed the pilot’s records were turned over.

“He did take bereavement leave in 2022 following his mother’s death, and his medical records were submitted as part of the investigation, and the preliminary report did not find anything noteworthy,” the rep said.

Rescue officials work at the site where Air India flight 171 crashed. Picture: AFP

British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh was the sole survivor and was spotted miraculously limping away from the wreckage in the moments after it made impact.

“When I opened my eyes, I realised I was alive,” he said from his hospital bed in the aftermath.

This story was originally published in The New York Post.