Pakistan on Wednesday said it had sought technical assistance from Turkey’s flag air carrier in an ongoing investigation into a plane crash that killed 98 people in the southern port city of Karachi last month.
Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said in parliament that a “senior pilot” from Turkish Airlines would soon join the investigators to ascertain if the crash was the result of technical or human error on the part of the plane’s pilot, local broadcaster Geo News reported.
Turkey to investigate PIA plane crash
“We’ve requested from Turkish Airlines the services of a senior pilot in the ongoing investigation. He will soon join that [investigation],” Khan said.
Pakistan on Wednesday said it had sought technical assistance from Turkey's flag air carrier in an ongoing investigation into a plane crash that killed 98 people in the southern port city of Karachi last month. https://t.co/TWCGyy9din
— ANews (@anews) June 10, 2020
Assuring the parliament of a transparent investigation into the May 22 plane crash and submission of a preliminary report on June 22, Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said on Wednesday that the government was ready to include two representatives of the global pilots’ body in the ongoing probe to make it more credible.
The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Association (Ifalpa) had approached the Pakistani authorities soon after the crash asking them to include a pilot investigator in their probe into the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) A320 crash that killed 97 of 99 passengers and crew members onboard in Karachi’s Model Colony area.
The crash: what happened?
On May 22, a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus traveling from the northeastern city of Lahore crashed into a residential area near Jinnah International Airport while landing with 99 passengers and crew on board.
Some 97 passengers and a girl on the ground were killed in the crash, while two survived.
Among the passengers were 20 women and three children, several army officers and senior journalist Ansar Naqvi.
One of the two people to survive a plane crash of flight PK8303 in Pakistan that killed 97 people has described jumping from the burning wreckage of the aircraft after it hurtled into a residential neighbourhood.
Read more: PK 803: Survivor recounts the moments before crash
“After it hit and I regained consciousness, I saw fire everywhere and no one was visible,” Mohammad Zubair, survivor of ill-fated flight PK8303, said from his hospital bed in a video clip circulated on social media.
“There were cries of children, adults and elderly. The cries were everywhere and everybody was trying to survive. I undid my seat belt and I saw some light and tried to walk towards it. Then I jumped out.”
Zubair had suffered burns but was in a stable condition, a health ministry official said.
The airline named the other survivor as the president of the Bank of Punjab, Zafar Masud.
Some blame the pilot for the PIA plane crash
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) while pointing out violation of rules and regulations by the captain of ill fated PIA crashed plane has said Air Traffic Controller kept on giving directives to the captain regarding landing but the captain did not abide by them.
Read more: Pilot violated the rules which led to PIA plane crash
The plane was on control zone approach point then its altitude was higher than what it should have been and the ATC warned the captain about this. When the plane was at 7 nautical miles its altitude was 5200 feet.
The controller warned the captain the altitude of the plane was very high. Controller directed the captain twice to turn the aircraft left at an angle of 180 degrees so that its height could be controlled.
Investigation underway
Prime Minister Imran Khan formed a four-member committee to investigate the crash — the second since 2016.
European plane-maker Airbus has also initiated an investigation into the crash. An 11-member team of Airbus experts and engineers visited the crash site last month and collected evidence.
The investigation team used latest technical equipments to interrogate the matter through forensic science. Sources have revealed that the flight data recorder (FDR) will be sent to France for decoding. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was recovered from the debris today. The investigation team had been assigned the task to inspect the affected buildings to recover the CVR and the services of PIA engineering and technical ground force and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Security and Vigilance were acquired as well.
The experts of Airbus company will continue investigation from crash area to runway and collect further evidences from the wreckage. The foreign experts will also be briefed at the Civil Aviation Headquarters and the PIA Head Office. Let it be known that at least 97 were killed and dozens others wounded after a PIA plane crashed with nearly 100 people on board in Karachi on Friday. The PIA plane was close to landing when it came down among houses, sparking an explosion and killing several people on the ground.
Now, Turkey is to help investigate the PIA plane crash, through its airline Turkish Airways.
Anadolu with additional input by GVS News Desk
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