9,300 Hours in the Cockpit and a Broken Promise: The Final Flight of Two Air India Pilots Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Kunder, with over 9,300 hours of combined flying experience, were at the controls of an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner en route to London’s Gatwick Airport — a journey that would end in tragedy.
From Experience to Error: How a Doomed Flight Defied 9,300 Pilot Hours
Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Kunder were among the 241 people who lost their lives when an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner tragically crashed in Ahmedabad on Thursday afternoon. The two highly experienced pilots had logged a combined 9,300 hours of flying time.
The ill-fated aircraft, carrying 230 passengers and 10 crew members, was en route to London’s Gatwick Airport when it went down just 32 seconds after takeoff. Remarkably, only one passenger—British-Indian national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh—survived the devastating crash.
This was not just a loss of 241 lives—it was the collapse of hundreds of dreams, the silencing of countless hopes, and the heartbreak of families left behind in the wreckage.
Captain Sumeet Sabharwal was an experienced pilot with 8,300 hours of flight time. Mr. Sabharwal, a Powai resident, allegedly made a vow to his father that he would resign from his work and devote himself to his full-time care. Mr. Sabharwal lived with his nonagenarian father and was unmarried. Shiv Sena politician Dilip Lande, who had visited the Sabharwals’ house to offer condolences, stated, “Only a few days ago, he told his father that he would be quitting his job to look after him full time,” according to The Times of India.
According to the neighbors, Sabharwals have a close relationship with the aviation sector. Both of Captain Sabharwal’s nephews are pilots, and his father resigned from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
Sumeet would beg us to watch over his father whenever he traveled out. A neighbor told the Hindustan Times, “He’s now devastated.”
First Officer and co-pilot Clive Kunder has flown 1,100 hours. His mother was a former flight attendant for Air India, thus he also comes from a family of aviation aficionados. At the moment, Mr. Kunder’s parents are visiting their daughter in Sydney.
The actor Vikrant Massey expressed his condolences for the passing of Mr. Kunder, who was the son of his uncle Clifford Kunder. “My heart breaks for the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives in the unimaginably tragic air crash in Ahmedabad today,” Mr. Massey wrote in an Instagram post. The loss of my uncle Clifford Kunder’s son, Clive Kunder, who was the first officer to operate on that tragic aircraft, makes the agony much worse. God bless you, your family, your uncle, and everyone else who is impacted.
Captain Sabharwal, the pilot, called Air Traffic Control with the word “Mayday” just before the jet lost communication, according to the DGCA. A distress signal known as a “Mayday” call is mostly used in marine and aviation communication to signal a life-threatening situation.
The aircraft took off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 1:38 p.m. At a very low altitude of 825 feet, the lift was not achieved, causing a crash and the aircraft to explode into flames.
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