India, July 19 -- The families of those who perished in the Air India 171 crash a mere 32 seconds after take-off deserve, at the very least, answers. But the promptness with which Boeing has been exonerated, especially in sections of the international media and the speed with which the pilots of the aircraft have been smeared, makes me think we might never get to the truth of what took the plane down. Take a cursory look at how this is playing out on shows hosted in the West by widely followed anchors such as Piers Morgan and Megyn Kelly. Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, the soft-spoken commander of the ill-fated plane who was monitoring and not flying when the plane crashed, has pretty much been called a suicidal murderer. I did not know Sabharwal at all, but as an Indian, it makes my blood boil to see this sort of loose talk that is clearly designed to mock the competence of all Indian pilots. The campaign against Sabharwal peaked when The Wall Street Journal converted whispers and insinuations about the senior pilot of the plane into a direct allegation that it was he who cut off the fuel to the engines of the plane by moving the switches. Imagine the pain and rage you would feel if you were Sabharwal's aging and grieving father, upon reading this about your child. Such media claims, so far, have little to no concrete substantiation and have clearly been written on the basis of leaks by US safety officials who were given access to the probe process in India. India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) has finally called out this smear campaign in a statement warning against "selective, unverified ... irresponsible reporting" in international media. But expect more slander and accusations against Sabharwal in the next few days as the media is fed slanted information bit by bit, piece by piece. The Americans are obviously spinning. Boeing is an American manufacturer that just paid more than a billion dollars in penalties to avoid prosecution - and the protest statement by Indian authorities may be too little, too late. The problem began with a pointed leak ahead of the release of the report, again to The Wall Street Journal, which set the stage for the pilots to be blamed. Then, two days later, in the dead of night, when it was working hours only for western media and most of India was asleep, the report was digitally released past 1 am. No one quite knows why this was the case. The ambiguously worded, open-ended preliminary crash investigation report was not elaborated on at any press conference. The report made no direct or explicit allegation against the pilots, but its vague and partial referencing has left the door wide open for endless speculation. It quotes or paraphrases (not clear which) a purported cockpit conversation between the two pilots, with one asking the other, "Why did you cut off?" and the other replying, "I did not". Though no names are taken, because Clive Kunder was flying (and both his hands were at the wheel), Sabharwal is the one under scrutiny in the global press for supposedly cutting fuel to the engines. And because the report said it had no further recommendations for either Boeing or GE (the engine manufacturer), this was widely read as a clean chit for them, leaving the path open for western media to focus solely on the pilots. After public outrage and focus on multiple advisories - from the US aviation regulator in 2018 on possibly faulty locks of the fuel switches; from GE in 2020 on a problem with a microprocessor; from the UK in 2025 May, when it renewed a directive flagging a safety concern with fuel valves - India's DGCA joined much of the world in mandating new checks on fuel switches across the Boeing fleet. If Boeing's claims that their fuel switches were in the clear was really trusted, why are airlines like Etihad and Singapore, along with Air India, running tests again? And if there is a nagging question mark over some of these concerns, why didn't the investigation board recommend these tests as a matter of abundant precaution? Mary Schiavo, a top US aviation attorney and a former inspector general of the US department of transportation was even more blunt. She told me that on the basis of what we know so far, "It is impossible to blame the pilots, it is the plane that is suspect unless proven otherwise". She and other aviation experts have pointed to a 2019 incident in which both engines of a 787 Nippon Airways plane quit on landing in Osaka without any pilot command. Uncommanded thrust movement, she says, is well documented and this incident mirrors the AI 171 crash, where the pilots deny moving the fuel switches physically. There is a plethora of pointedly missing information in the preliminary report. The cockpit voice recorder has, of course, been partially quoted. But the time and altitude stamp for when the purported exchange between the two pilots spoke is missing. The time and altitude stamp for when the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) deployed is also absent. This is critical to understand at what stage the engines failed. As a senior pilot told me, the probe report should either have been totally confidential or totally open. The halfway house has permitted the entry of vested interests. Boeing's own record on safety is hardly inspiring. After the first crash of the 737 Max, pilots were blamed. It took a tragic second crash for Boeing to concede that its Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) software had been the problem. Its CEO is on record before the US Congress conceding serious lapses with security. Yet, the American media focuses on none of this. And in pointing fingers at captain Sabharwal, they do not even consider a plane malfunction or the multiple ignored advisories. Boeing shares rose immediately after the crash report was released and no action or further tests were mandated against its planes. Meanwhile, Sabharwal's enraged colleagues are left valiantly defending a man who can no longer speak for himself. One of them shared a photograph of a greying Sabharwal from a tech-refresher course at Air India. He topped the course, his crestfallen friend said quietly....