Ill-fated PIA aircraft suffered engine problems: CAA secretary

ISLAMABAD: A senior aviation official has confirmed that the ill-fated Pakistan International Airlines aircraft, which crashed near Havelian with 47 people onbaord, suffered engine problems.

Speaking to reporters at the Islamabad airport on Wednesday, Secretary Aviation Irfan Ilahi confirmed that the ATR-42 turboprob plane suffered engine problems.

"It is premature to say anything at the moment, but we know that the aircraft had engine problems," he said.

When asked about the operation, he could not confirm how many bodies had been taken out from the crash site, but he said that an information desk has been set up at the Islamabad airport to guide families of the passengers.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, pilots told Geo.tv that the ill-fated PIA ATR tail registration AP-BHO had previous complaints of engine flameout.

CAA sources confirmed that the pilot of flight PK-661 sent a mayday call to the control tower shortly before the aviation staff on ground lost communication with the plane.

The PIA plane carrying 47 people crashed on a domestic flight near the town of Havelian in Abbottabad district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province from the mountainous northern city of Chitral to Islamabad.

The plane took off from Chitral around 3:00PM but communication with the control tower was broken around 4:30PM, shortly before it was about to arrive at its destination.

Pakistan has had a poor air safety track record in recent years.

The country's last major air disaster was in 2015 when a military helicopter crashed in a remote northern valley, killing eight people including the Norwegian, Philippine and Indonesian envoys and the wives of Malaysian and Indonesian envoys.

In 2012, a Bhoja Airline plane, a Boeing 737 carrying 121 passengers and six crew members, crashed near Islamabad just before touchdown.

The worst aviation tragedy on Pakistani soil came in July 2010 when an Airbus 321 passenger jet operated by the private airline Airblue crashed into hills overlooking Islamabad. The flight was coming in from Karachi. All 152 people on board were killed in the accident, which occurred amid heavy rain and poor visibility.

Another deadly civilian plane crash involving a Pakistani jet came to pass in 1992 when a PIA Airbus A300 crashed into a cloud-covered hillside on its approach to the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, killing 167 people.