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Pakistan plane crash that killed 97 caused by ‘overconfident’ pilots chatting about Covid-19, report says
- The plane was flying at more than double the altitude it should have been when it started to land and standard flight operating procedures were ignored
- This resulted in an aborted crash landing that heavily damaged the plane’s engines, before the aircraft ploughed into a residential area near Karachi airport
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A plane crash which killed 97 people in Pakistan last month was because of human error by the pilots, who were discussing the coronavirus during the landing, according to an initial report released Wednesday.
The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane came down among houses on May 22 after both engines failed as it approached Karachi airport, killing all but two people on board.
“The pilot as well as the controller didn’t follow the standard rules,” the country’s aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said, announcing the findings in parliament.
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The minister added the pilots had been discussing the coronavirus pandemic as they attempted to land the Airbus A320 and had disengaged the craft’s autopilot.
03:02
‘I saw fire everywhere’: survivor recounts Pakistan crash that killed 97 people
‘I saw fire everywhere’: survivor recounts Pakistan crash that killed 97 people
“Unfortunately the pilot was overconfident,” Khan said, adding that the plane was flying at more than double the altitude it should have been when he approached to land.
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