PM Nawaz directs early completion of PK-661 crash investigation

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday urged to complete the process of inquiry of PIA crash under the Safety Board as soon as possible.

Addressing a high-level meeting in Islamabad, he directed for a detailed, independent, and transparent inquiry into the unfortunate crash in order to bring facts before the public.

The Prime minister also directed that a senior officer from the Air Force should be co-opted as a member of the inquiry committee.

Nawaz Sharif directed PIA administration to reach out to the affected families and facilitate them in every way to lessen the burden of their grief.

Chairman PIA, Secretary Aviation Division, DG Civil Aviation and CEO PIA briefed the Prime Minister that the flight crew and pilots operating the flight were highly experienced and professional with thousands of hours of flying experience behind them. The deceased captain had more than ten thousand flying hours to his credit.

The Prime Minister was further briefed that the unfortunate aircraft had duly undergone routine and regular maintenance and safety checks, and was declared airworthy in all respects.

A PIA plane carrying 47 people crashed Wednesday on a domestic flight from the mountainous northern city of Chitral to Islamabad, killing all on board.

The plane took off from Chitral around 3:50PM and PIA said the plane crashed at 1642 local time (1142 GMT) in the Havelian area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, about 125 km north of Islamabad.

Timeline of Air disasters in Pakistan

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.