By Shahzad Murad
KARACHI: The Civil Aviation Authority’s investigation report termed PIA-661 crash as a result of technical failures, which means that the pilot is not the one responsible for the crash.
In 2016, PIA’s ill-fated aircraft crashed while on its route from Chitral to Islamabad, where flight PK-661 couldn’t complete its journey and resulted in a deadly crash; killing forty-seven people on board.
Well-known preacher Junaid Jamshed was among forty-seven people who lost their lives to this calamity.
The report submitted by Civil Aviation Authority at the Sindh High Court is 207 pages long which contains details about the occurrence of the incident and the responsible team.
The report declares that the responsible department for this tragedy is PIA Engineering and Maintenance department as the aircraft experienced technical problems. This report further clarifies that the pilot of PK-661 is not liable for the crash.
On the day of the air crash, PK-661 departed around 15:50 from Chitral and as per earlier and this report the plane crashed at 16:42 local time in the Havelian, KPK; which is located around 125 km north Islamabad.
It took around 4 years to complete the investigation of the Havelian air crash. As stated in a notification by the aviation division, “The air crash investigation spanned over nearly 4 years due to the complexity and unprecedented nature of latent conditions. The detailed investigation required keeping all stakeholders on board through rigorous coordination with the respective states and their aircraft accident investigation bodies,”
To further illustrate the technical causes of aircraft’s failure, the investigation report identified three main technical faults that caused the plane crash.
A fractured pin has been found inside the overspeed governor.
Engine No.1 had one fractured power turbine blades.
Existence of contamination inside PVM (Propeller Valve Module).
The investigation report also mentioned that the report was released after the agreement of stakeholders involved i.e BEA of France, TSB of Canada, and NTSB of USA.
