The Indian Commercial Pilots' Association (ICPA) on Sunday said the crew of the AI 171 flight that crashed last month acted in line with their training and responsibilities under challenging conditions, and the pilots should not be vilified based on conjecture.

Strongly rejecting insinuations in some quarters about pilot suicide, the association representing narrow-body pilots of Air India stressed that until the official investigation is concluded and the final report is published, any speculation is unacceptable and must be condemned.

It may be noted here that the Airline Pilots' Association of India also had on Saturday demanded a fair and fact-based probe into the Air India plane crash as it claimed that the tone and direction of the investigation into the Air India plane crash suggests a bias towards pilot error.