Black box report of Havelian crash

‘Both engines of ATR plane were fine when aircraft took off’

ISLAMABAD: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says the black box report revealed that both the engines of the ATR flight PK-661, which crashed in December last year near Havelian en route to from Chitral to Islamabad, were working 100 percent.

Flight PK-661 carrying 48 passengers and crew, including famed preacher Junaid Jamshed, crashed on the way to Islamabad from Chitral on December 7, 2016. There were no survivors on the flight. The CAA Secretary, Irfan Elahi, shared the authority’s findings with the Senate Standing Committee on Rules of Procedures and Privileges on Thursday. According to the secretary CAA, both engines of the aircraft were running 100% fine when the plane took off from Chitral. Irfan Elahi said investigations are still underway to determine why the plane crashed despite one of its engines being functional.

Sharing details of the black box report, the CAA secretary said the first call to the control room was made at 4:12pm and the pilot’s voice was seemingly calm. He said two minutes later at 4:14pm, the pilot issued a May Day call, saying one of the engines had stopped working. At 4:17pm, the plane altered its course east instead of heading south at which point the control room tried to get in touch with the pilot.

The last communication with the pilot was recorded at 4:17pm. Irfan Elahi said 10 to 15 minutes later, the plane was reported to have crashed. He said the data from the black box is cent percent unaltered and that the investigation was conducted independently without any involvement of the CAA or PIA. Irfan Elahi also revealed that the prime minister had travelled on the same plane to Gwadar one week before the crash.