After the crash

Pakistanis are justly cynical about government investigations  into disasters and accidents. All too often enquiries are ordered to placate an angry public and the final report does not provide answers. We saw that happen with the report on the 2010 Air Blue crash when it was blamed entirely on the crew, even though others had raised different concerns. It is our duty to ensure that does not happen with the inquiry into the PK-661 crash. And there should be a larger inquiry into airline safety standards in the country. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif directed the Civil Aviation Authority to maintain international standards for the repair of passenger aircraft – which raises the question of what standards were being followed before. There is usually not just a single reason for an aircraft to crash since there are mechanisms in place to guard against human error and faulty parts. Typically, a cascade of mistakes and problems causes a crash which is why a full investigation can take more than a year. This is also why the initial CAA inquiry only hints at possible reasons for the disaster. So far, the CAA has found that the left engine of the PIA plane malfunctioned. This on its own is not sufficient to cause the crash since planes are supposed to be able to fly with one engine. One possibility raised by the initial report is that the engine exploded and caused structural damage to the aircraft, perhaps affecting the wing. That could explain why the plane went into freefall instead of safely descending.       

Some have questioned why the ATR model of aircraft was being used when it had been facing problems. That is a question the CAA should answer. It has said there were no previous problems with this plane. All planes have to be inspected by the CAA after every 500 hours of flying time, and a PIA official has said that the plane had passed its most recent test in October. It was also relatively new, having been constructed only 11 years ago. For now, we will have to wait for all the plane’s flight recorders to be recovered to get a better sense of what happened. During that time, the CAA should not only continue to piece together the puzzle that is the PK-661 crash, it also needs to ensure all other planes in the air are safe. The need now is for the CAA and the airlines themselves to be proactive rather than reactive. This did not happen after the Air Blue crash of 2010 and the Bhoja Air crash of 2012. The truth is that the authorities only pay attention to aircraft safety when there is a major disaster and are otherwise uninterested. It is that attitude which will have to change if we are to guard against future crashes.