Abbas Ali wrote:
And following is ‘Flight International’ magazine's December 15, 1979 report, that’s nearly three weeks after AP-AWZ accident that happened on November 26, 1979. So, apparently it does not include complete findings of crash investigators.
Cause of PIA crash unknown
NO reason has yet been advanced to account for smoke in the cabin of Pakistan International Boeing 707 AP-AWZ which crashed on November 26 killing all 145 passengers and 11 crew. The aircraft was climbing out at night from Jeddah having loaded more than 100 pilgrims for the flight to Karachi. At about 25,000ft the captain made a radio call, reporting smoke in the cabin and requesting emergency descent. The final radio call confirmed that the smoke was in the cabin and that the crew were putting on smoke masks.
This what i just found on Super70.com:
November 26, 1979 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 707/Pakistan (PIA) 156
On board fire at 33,000 feet; descended through 30,000 then crashed
Ok so i see we have different reports stating different altitudes where aircraft was and pilot reported either fire or smoke in the cabin!
So now can we go with these reports that are conflicting with each other,
I don't think so, there is big difference between 25,000ft and 33,000ft!!
Among other reports it states that none of passengers started the kerosene stoves they used to carry on but it was STOVE that exploded, hmmm interesting isn't it..
How do these reports were made and what sources are these based on is the question now. No one survived that crash so these didn't originated from surviving passenger or the crew, so what was in CVR recording of the last minutes of this doomed flight, does anyone know it first hand on here?, again i ask: Where are those transcripts reports from the initial crash that was reported to PIA!.
I for one can't go with these reports as they all seems to be going in circles as none have actual evidence as to what exactly happened to this flight. In other word they are pieced together from listening or reading each others reports and basing them as the facts, not ture!
I like to know exact timing when initially pilot reported smoke or fire in the cabin as there is no evidence fire entered in the cockpit, on personal note, i highly doubt if fire did indeed spread rapidly and engulfed the whole cabin with it, specially within few minutes when there was so very little oxygen onboard to help it turn the cabin into inferno!.
Lets talk hypercritically for a bit..
OK somehow there was explosion onboard, we know fire needs oxygen to fuel itself to gain strength to continue burning, so when there is no to very little oxygen onboard how can it spread so rapidly through out the whole cabin!. The only way i am thinking, could it be that "the explosion" was so bad that it went through the floor and into the fuel tanks and that is when fire kept on burning through out the cabin on rapid rate and decapitated the flight controls causing the plane to veer off it's course while descending at high rate and during this course it went over restricted area and SAM was fired on it!....
The reason why i am emphasizing about this onboard explosion in this manner as i am connecting this accident partially to Nation Air's leased DC8-61 by Nigerian Airlines to transport hajj pilgrims to and from Jeddah. This particular aircraft had worn out tires and bearings on its main landing gears, while it was rolling down the runway for takeoff it's bearings heated and were on fire, this fire grew on to the wheels and when landing gears retracted into the fuselage while on fire, it started heating the center fuel tank and then fuel tank was on fire and this fire went though the flooring into the cabin and with that big burned hole in the belly fire was fueled with fresh air and it literally engulfed the whole cabin to the point that while pilot was coming for landing over the city of Jeddah, burned sections of the aircraft were falling from it including few burned bodies.
So could PK-740 suffered from similar onboard explosion or was there combination of events that happened causing this aircraft to crash...