PIA ATR Flight PK-661 Crashes Near Havelian

[Abbas Ali]

Investigators have to submit a preliminary report to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on January 6/7 or before in line with ICAO regulations that the preliminary report must be filed within 30 days of the date of the accident.

PIA flight 661 met accident on December 7.

Abbas

[faisal-777]

30 days past, still no signs of report. Must have asked for extension. The debris of aircraft was also transported quite late, which could be the reason that an initial account of accident hasn't been prepared.

[Abbas Ali]

According to news sources, today Pakistan CAA officials informed a senate committee:

Nothing seriously wrong with the aircraft found in last sixty days of its maintenance record.

The aircraft appeared on Islamabad radar at 4:12 PM.

Engine failure/mayday call received from the aircraft at 4:14 PM.

Aircraft transponder was not working.

Islamabad Airport runway was made available on priority basis for the aircraft after it gave another mayday call (time?).

Nothing further heard from the aircraft after its cockpit crew replied "standby" at 4:20 PM.


Aircraft cockpit clock stopped at 11:21 AM GMT time i.e. at 4:21 PM Pakistan Standard Time, according to wreckage pieces shown on news channels some weeks ago.

Abbas

[Boomin Bomber IJ]

Surely the CVR and more importantly, the FDR must have revealed something... why are they taking it so long? One could have suspected sabotage had there not been the engine fire. We can infer the plane did not explode in mid air so it seems to point more and more to pilot error... waiting fingers crossed to read the full report.

[faisal-777]

Surely the CVR and more importantly, the FDR must have revealed something... why are they taking it so long? One could have suspected sabotage had there not been the engine fire. We can infer the plane did not explode in mid air so it seems to point more and more to pilot error... waiting fingers crossed to read the full report.

And I wonder if that error was turning off wrong engine. But even if it was, it shouldn't have brought the plane down so fast

[Abbas Ali]

Reason behind plane crash still unknown

January 11, 2017 by madeeha zuberi

Pakistan International Airlines Corporation Limited (PIACL) on Tuesday disclosed that the root cause of the crash of ATR plane on its way from Chitral to Islamabad is unknown and apparently aircraft experienced engine failure/trouble, followed by more anomalies, forming a chain and ended up in a fatal crash.

In a brief submitted to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat, the PIA said that the safety recommendations will be investigated and proposed by the Safety Investigation Board (SIB).

Chitral airfield has been provided regular air transport service by the PIA since long, but due to the terrain surrounding the airfield and en route, it is a requirement from the flight operations department to familiarise crew with the terrain and the route to be flown, before they can act as operating crew for sectors to and from the airfield. Hence, first officer occupying the observer’s seat was on a route familiarisation sortie.

Aircraft had operated several sectors before the accident sector and this was the last sector of the operating crew, back to base Islamabad. At this stage much of information cannot be made available due to fact that investigation is being conducted by the SIB and the PIA is not part of the constitution of the board members of the investigation, the PIA said.

“Known information that has been received and that may not be very legitimate as aircraft PK-661 reported position TIPOM to Islamabad ATC and radar contact was confirmed by ATC, aircraft squawking 2022 (radar identification code) and 38 miles North-West of Islamabad.

“One minute and fifty two (00:01:52) seconds (approximately) from the first call at position TIPOM, aircraft declared ‘Loosing One Engine’ along with’ May Day’ call. “ATC directed PK-661 to set direct course to RN (ISB) and position was identified by ATC 33 miles North West heading east.

“During the course of aircraft descending, radar contact was lost and in the later stages of the event, communication anomalies also developed. Second ‘May Day’ call was communicated three minutes and thirty one seconds (00:03:31) after the first ‘May Day’ call, ‘priority landing’ was also requested by PK-661.

The aircraft crashed in the mountainous terrain area near the village of Havelian , which was east of the route intended to be flown, the PIA concluded.

“Aircraft was totally destroyed and all occupants were perished in the fatal crash”. The findings also revealed that the crew was qualified to operate the flight. It was a routine passenger flight during which a route familiarisation was being conducted for the third occupant (first officer on 3rd seat). Aircraft was loaded within limits.

Source: aaj.tv

[raihans]

At this stage much of information cannot be made available due to fact that investigation is being conducted by the SIB and the PIA is not part of the constitution of the board members of the investigation, the PIA said.

Is it not strange that representative from PIA is not included in Investigation board or PIA is kept limited to provide all sufficient data/reports required by SIB?

[Boomin Bomber IJ]

At this stage much of information cannot be made available due to fact that investigation is being conducted by the SIB and the PIA is not part of the constitution of the board members of the investigation, the PIA said.

Is it not strange that representative from PIA is not included in Investigation board or PIA is kept limited to provide all sufficient data/reports required by SIB?

Nothing strange in this. The airline is never part of the investigation team for the simple reason that they cannot be fair when the cause might turn out to be of their negligence

[yyzflyer]

is the SIB even unbiased and/or impartial and without any vested interests?

[shayan0321]

Initial CAA findings report telling data from the recovered black box of the ill fated flight is out. Details as on following link
http://www.dawn.com/news/1307983/aviati ... lane-crash

[shayan0321]

Findings say that both engines were running 100 percent when the plane took off. However only one engine was working at the crash time hence i suppose engine failure might be the most likely cause then. However lets see what future reports and findings conclude

[arshad.altaf]

Aviation authority shares findings of black box report for Abbottabad plane crash

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Thursday shared its findings from black box data recovered from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight PK-661.

Flight PK-661, carrying 48 passengers and crew, had crashed on the way to Islamabad from Chitral on Dec 7, 2016.

There were no survivors from the ill-fated flight.

CAA Secretary Irfan Elahi shared the authority's findings with the Senate Standing Committee on Rules of Procedures and Privileges, DawnNews reported.

According to the secretary, both engines of the aircraft were running "100%" fine when the plane took off from Chitral.

He also revealed that one of the plane's engines was working when the plane crashed, but black box data indicates that no effort was made to land the aircraft before the crash was reported.

Elahi said investigations are still ongoing 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" when he made the call.

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.

10 to 15 minutes later, the plane was reported to have crashed, Elahi revealed.

He said the data from the black box is "100 per cent" unaltered, and that the investigation was conducted independently, without any involvement of the CAA or PIA.

Elahi also revealed that the prime minister had travelled on the same plane to Gwadar one week before the crash.

Aviation expert Air Commodore Jamal Hussain, while speaking to DawnNews, said the plane was out of "control", "maybe something bumped into it"; however, he added that making speculations right now would be unfair.

He further said the black box report is independent of the CAA and the CAA is not trying to cover up any alleged negligence on its part.

[Abbas Ali]

Preliminary findings report should be made available on Pakistan CAA website.

Abbas

[faisal-777]

These preliminary findings are what we already knew. From the day of crash we know yes the aircraft lost an engine, declared emergency etc etc. What needs to be known is what abnormalities have they come across so far in the investigation? Or there is nothing they could figure out so far.

All in all, we may actually never know exactly what happened.

[Squawk_1200]

It is still too early for PIA and CAA to give any definite information about the reasons of crash. Even if PIA and CAA heard the combination recorders it is still early for them to conclude anything.

So far what has been revealed by secretary of aviation is, ruling out that airplane had an engine problem. Airplane,s both engines were developing 100% power ,This may be true looking at the graph and the flight path of airplane available over the internet free sites and by some independent sites , airplane performance climb gradient temperature and density altitude was normal ,aircraft reached cruising altitude and its time of arrival at destination was by the clock ,

If recorders reveal some thing that without visual reconstruction of the pieces of aircraft it will still take some time before SIB give out any information.

Fault developed during cruise , it could be a restart attempt to start the faulty engine in the air may have cause come thing catastrophic , propeller blades coming of the the hub hitting the fuselage or a debris hitting to T tail mechanism Rod or cables causing an airplane to go uncontrolled.

There were news that this airplane and the other ATR aero plane propellers were calibrated at PIA maintenance facility, PIA maintenance family was not equipped and had no approved apparatus and were not authorized to calibrate ATR propellers.




SIB words would be final and I dont think SIB will have anything to hide .