PK-661 black box decoded; analysis fails to solve crash mystery

The black box of the ill-fated PK-661 flight has been decoded and the transcript analyses of the contents have failed to find the real cause of the crash.

On Dec 7, an ATR carrying 47 people crashed near Havelian, killing all the people on-board. The flight was travelling from Chitral to Islamabad and just minutes before it was scheduled to land, it crashed killing all people.

In a recently held meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Rules of Procedures and Privileges, officials of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) disclosed the findings of the black box.

CAA Secretary Irfan Elahi told the members of the committee that both engines of the aircraft were running ‘100 per cent’ fine when the plane took off from Chitral. He further added that even when the plane crashed, one of the engines was still working fine.

“The black box data indicates that no effort was made to land the aircraft before the crash. So investigations are still going on to determine why the plane crashed despite the fact that one of its engines was properly working,” he said.

ATRs are designed in such a way, that even if both the engines fail, the plane can still glide for a little while and the pilot can then try and make it land safely. Initial investigations into the PK-661 crash suggested that one of the engines might have exploded, damaging the aerodynamics of the plane due to which it crashed.

While addressing the committee members, Mr. Elahi also revealed that the pilot was calm when he made his first call to the tower at 4:12 pm, however, just two minutes after he sent out a distress call. After 10 to 15 minutes of that call, it was confirmed that the plane had crashed.

The weather conditions on the day of the crash were normal, the pilot had extensive experience of flying in the northern areas and the plane also seemed to be working fine, so the mystery of the crash still remains unsolved.

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Posted by fatimaarshad on Jan 13 2017. Filed under Latest News, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.