The Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) has upheld the punishment awarded to an IAF Wing Commander for supervisory lapses that led to the death of a young pilot in a Jaguar fighter aircraft crash.The Tribunal held that, as the squadron’s flight commander, he knew fully well that the deceased officer had not completed all his pre-flying activities but still detailed him for a sortie, making him guilty of supervisory lapses.On August 4, 2011, a Flight Lieutenant was killed when a Jaguar aircraft crashed near Gorakhpur. He had joined duty on July 31, 2011, and was instructed by the flight commander to complete his arrival formalities by the forenoon of August 1.He was also scheduled to fly with the squadron’s commanding officer on August 2, but the sortie was postponed by a day. On August 3, the Flight Lieutenant undertook two sorties in the forenoon—the first with the commanding officer as a dual-check sortie and the second as a solo sortie.A court of inquiry (COI), after examining the entire technical record, concluded that the most probable cause of the accident on August 4 was Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT), resulting from an inadvertent descent that was not detected by the pilot in time to allow recovery.The COI held the flight commander blameworthy for planning a sortie for the Flight Lieutenant without providing him adequate time to settle down at the station and go through all orders and instructions. It also held him responsible for failing to ensure the completion of ground tests, adequate simulator training under supervision and sufficient opportunity for the officer to have his personal flying equipment issued. Consequently, he was awarded the punishment of ‘severe displeasure’.The flight commander contended that the aircraft involved had a technical defect, which had also been flagged by British Aerospace, the manufacturer to which the flight data recorder had been sent for analysis. He also said that he had been on leave from August 3 to 5, during which the deputy flight commander was responsible for operations.The Tribunal Bench comprising Justice Nandita Dubey and Rear Admiral Dhiren Vig observed in its September 14 order that the flight commander himself had admitted during the COI that it normally took a week for a newly reporting pilot to begin flying. However, he had planned sorties for the Flight Lieutenant earlier. He also admitted that he had not checked everything that was required to be completed before planning the sortie for August 2.The Bench held that being on leave from August 3 to 5 did not absolve him of dereliction of duty as flight commander, as all official activities to be undertaken until August 2 rested on his shoulders.“The flight commander, therefore, officially cannot shy away from the blame for any duty which he ought to perform on August 2. Even if the commanding officer had allowed his leave, he failed to proactively involve himself in briefing the commanding officer and the officiating flight commander not to plan any sortie for the deceased Flight Lieutenant till all the mandatory pre-flight activities were conducted and the officer was comfortable to undertake any sortie,” the Bench ruled.