COMMENT | The ink is barely dry on the preliminary report into the tragic June 12 crash of Air India Flight 171 - a Boeing 787 Dreamliner that plunged into a medical college housing block in Ahmedabad just seconds after takeoff - and already, parts of the British press have done what they do best: smear the dead to save the powerful.

A total of 260 lives were lost, including everyone onboard except one British national, and several on the ground. 

And yet, instead of waiting for a thorough, fact-based conclusion, journalists have gleefully latched onto a single ambiguous cockpit exchange to paint a dead man - Captain Sumeet Sabharwal - as the architect of his demise.

According to investigators and US officials...