Captain Sumeet Sabharwal: A Respected Veteran's Final Journey
Captain Sumeet Sabharwal was a highly experienced and deeply respected figure in the aviation community. With 8,200 flying hours to his name, he brought a wealth of expertise to the cockpit. A resident of Mumbai's Powai locality, he was known for his calm demeanor and professionalism. "Captain Sumeet was a very good and experienced pilot. His death is a huge loss for Air India," said Sanjeev Pai, a family friend and retired Wing Commander. "He was such a calm and peaceful person, an excellent pilot. There were never any complaints about him."
Aviation was in Captain Sabharwal's blood. His father was a former official with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), and two of his cousins are also pilots, all of whom had inspired his own path into the skies. In a particularly heartbreaking turn of events, it was revealed that Captain Sabharwal was on the verge of concluding his career. Just days before the fatal crash, he had told his ailing, 82-year-old father that he planned to quit his job to provide full-time care for him.
First Officer Clive Kunder: A Promising Career Cut Short
Sharing the cockpit with the veteran captain was First Officer Clive Kunder, a young aviator at the nascent stage of his professional journey. With 1,100 hours of flying experience, Kunder was building a promising career, following in the footsteps of his mother, who was a flight crew member. He had undertaken an aircraft maintenance course at the Bombay Flying Club and grew up in Mumbai's Air India colony in Kalina before his family later moved to Borivali.
Kunder's loss has left his family and friends devastated. Actor Vikrant Massey, a family friend, expressed his grief on Instagram. "My heart breaks for the families and loved ones of the ones who lost their lives in the unimaginably tragic air crash," he wrote. "It pains even more to know that my uncle, Clifford Kunder, lost his son, Clive Kunder, who was the first officer operating on that fateful flight." Kunder's sister, Kliene, speaking from Sydney, shared the family's shock and heartbreak as they prepared to travel to Ahmedabad to learn more about the tragedy.
A Shared Fate
Together, Captain Sabharwal and First Officer Kunder had a combined flying experience of 9,300 hours. They were in command of the flight to London's Gatwick Airport, with passengers and crew members on board. According to reports, as their Dreamliner began to stall minutes after reaching an altitude of 625 feet, both pilots had less than a minute to react to the unfolding emergency. The aircraft issued a "Mayday" call before it crashed, but there was reportedly no further communication from the cockpit despite repeated attempts by Air Traffic Control to re-establish contact. The tragic crash brought an abrupt and cruel end to two very different life stories—one of a seasoned professional ready for a new chapter of family duty, and the other of a young man with a full career ahead of him.
