Hawalian crash: ATR’s failure sequence triggered because of fracture of turbine blade

KARACHI: The Aircraft Accident Investigation Board on Tuesday filed a progress report before the Sindh High Court with regard to Pakistan International Airlines’ ATR crash incident at Hawalian in December 2016, mentioning that the ATR’s failure sequence was triggered because of a fracture of turbine blade consequent to one procedure anomaly of PIA maintenance.

Filing the progress report before the SHC, which was hearing a petition seeking a judicial inquiry into the December 2016 flight PK-661 crash inquiry in which 42 passengers, including singer-turned-preacher Junaid Jamshed and the crew lost their lives, AAIB President Air Commodore Usman Ghani submitted that the board was of the view the crash event was one of its kind that had never been experienced earlier on any other ATR aircraft internationally.

The AAIB submitted that there were two latent technical anomalies and one latent condition and failure events occurred in a sequence where one preceded another. The board stated that the way the chain of events occurred was highly unexpected and exceptional.

The board submitted that the ATR’s failure sequence was triggered because of fracture of turbine blade consequent to one procedure anomaly of PIA maintenance adding that had any one of these latent factors not existed and triggered by a blade failure, this complicated catastrophic sequence of failures subsequently leading to the crash could have been averted.

The board said that during the course of investigation, various findings were established progressively and in order to ensure safety, the AAIB issued two immediate safety recommendations to PIA Engineering and CAA Airworthiness with regard to the entire ATR fleet.

The AAIB president submitted that the investigation has been completed; however, for the public dissemination and formal release of crash report, the AAIB is obliged by ICAO Convention and civil aviation rules to have concurrence of foreign accredited representatives who represent the respective states of manufacture and design of aircraft components.

The court was informed that in the case of ATR, France was the aircraft manufacturer, Canada was engine manufacturer and USA was the manufacturer of propeller and some related system. The federal law officer told the court that concurrence of France and Canada has been received but the final concurrence of USA was likely to be received by October 30, thereafter, the complete report will be submitted to the court by the AAIB. The president AAIB submitted that the board used to upload such reports on the website of Civil Aviation Authority.

The SHC’s division bench, headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar, directed to supply copies of the statement as well as the progress report to the petitioner who sought time to go through the same. The court directed the President AAIB to submit the final report with regard to the ATR crash by November 19.

Referring to the ATR crash, the petitioner, Syed Iqbal Kazmi, told the court that the DG CAA had made startling disclosures about the functioning of ATR planes in his letters to his seniors. He said that 20 incidents were recorded where the engines of ATR planes had stopped during flights. Besides, in 90 cases, the engines of ATR planes were removed as well. He said that despite knowledge of defects in the aircraft, the respondents did not take precautionary measures to avoid accidents and save previous lives. He argued that after such incidents, it was the constitutional obligation of the Cabinet Division secretary, the DG CAA and the PIA chairman to refrain from purchasing outdated planes, using them and risking the lives of passengers and crew members.

He pleaded for a judicial inquiry into the crash to fix responsibility and prosecute those responsible while ordering compensation to the legal heirs.Kazmi requested the SHC to direct the respondents to ground all the planes currently being used by the PIA and to order their inspection by the CAA or any other independent investigating agency or department.