Lahore PIA PK-8303 crashed in Karachi on May 22 with 99 people on board
Karachi:
Pakistani aviation authorities told Pakistan International Airlines that the pilot of a passenger plane that crashed in a residential area of Karachi last month ignored air traffic control instructions for landing, said A PIA spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The PIA Airbus A320 crashed on May 22 when it attempted to land after the pilots reported the loss of both engines. Ninety-seven people on board were killed and two survived. At least one person is said to have died in the field.
Initial reports suggested that the aircraft had scratched its engines along the runway during an initial landing attempt after what appeared to be an unstable approach, arriving steep and rapid.
In a letter to PIA, the Civil Aviation Authority stated that an approach controller had twice told the pilot to abort his approach on approach to landing but that he had not complied .
As it approached the landing, the aircraft’s ground speed was above the runway threshold, the letter said, citing the controller.
It rose from the runway surface and crashed into Model Colony while attempting a second approach, according to the letter.
“Yes, we have received the letter, they are documenting it,” Abdullah Hafeez Khan, managing director of corporate communications for PIA, told Reuters.
He declined to comment on the statements made in the letter.
The flight was observed to be high for the approach as it passed Makli, approximately 100 km east of Karachi, but the pilot stated that he was comfortable on the descent, the letter said. He was also warned a second time.
The airplane cockpit voice recorder and the flight data box are being decoded in France by the French agency BEA.
Pakistani Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said that a first report on the accident would be presented to Parliament on June 22.
Aviation safety experts say that air accidents generally have several causes and that it is too early to determine the reasons for the air disaster, which is Pakistan’s worst since 2012.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
