Air India Mystery, from Depression to the Last Dialogue: Suspicions About the Pilot

Indian pilot Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, commander of the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London that crashed last June 12 in Ahmedabad, shortly after takeoff, killing 260 people including 241 on board while only one passenger survived, was probably suffering from depression.

Sabharwal, who had logged more than 15,000 flight hours at the time of the tragedy, had taken leave in recent years for mental health reasons, the Telegraph reported. This is what emerges from the investigations being conducted by the Indian authorities after the black box revealed the last dialogue between Sabharwal and the co-pilot who had over 3,400 hours of experience.

"Why did you turn off the engines? No, I didn't do it," can be heard from the recovered recordings.

"I have heard from several Air India pilots who told me he was suffering from depression and mental health problems," said Mohan Ranganathan, one of India's leading air safety experts. "In the last three or four years he had taken a break from flying. He had taken sick leave," he added.

According to the Telegraph, Sabharwal had also taken bereavement leave following the death of his mother in 2022 and had recently considered retiring to care for his elderly father.

In September last year the pilot underwent a medical examination and was cleared to return to work, Ranganathan said.

According to a preliminary report on the tragedy, the jet's engine fuel shutoff switch was activated just three seconds after takeoff causing a loss of thrust that led to the crash. The aircraft itself, therefore, had no malfunction problems and investigators are now trying to understand whether the switches were turned off accidentally or intentionally and whether a reset was attempted to manage an emergency situation.

The switches are normally on during flight and it is not clear how or why they were turned off. In any case, turning off the switches may explain why the jet's emergency generator, known as the ram air turbine (Rat), would have activated moments before the plane crashed near a medical student hostel. The accident was the first fatal one involving Boeing's Dreamliner.