The crash of an Airbus A320 of the company PIA, on May 22 in Karachi, is due to the "negligence" of the pilots, victims of an "overconfidence", and the air traffic controllers, affirmed, Wednesday, June 24, the Pakistani Minister of Aviation. The accident left 97 dead.

"There has been negligence on both sides," said Ghulam Sarwar Khan, who presented his first report to the parliament. "The pilot ignored the instructions of the air traffic controllers, who for their part did not report the damage" that a first failed landing attempt had caused to the plane, he explained.

"Concentration" fault

During the entire landing phase, "the pilot and the co-pilot were not concentrated and throughout the conversation, they talked about corona. The virus was in their minds, their family was affected and they discussed it", said Ghulam Sarwar Khan, based on the tapping of the plane's black boxes made in France.

"When (the pilot) reached the landing point, the control tower told him 'you are too high, you must descend'. He quickly listened to the call and said: 'I will get out' . Then he started talking about the coronavirus again, "said the minister, pointing to the" overconfidence "of the pilots and their lack of" concentration ".

The plane, the landing gear retracted, then tried a first time to land, its engines touching the ground three times, before taking off for a second aborted attempt, according to Ghulam Sarwar Khan.

"We lost the engines"

The control tower "should have informed (the pilots) when it saw the aircraft land on its engines and noticed the fire coming out of the engines, but it did not do so," he said. he regrets.

The aircraft eventually crashed into a residential area, killing 97 of the 99 people on board, including eight crew members.

A recording authenticated shortly after the accident by a PIA spokesperson had heard a distress call from the pilot at the control tower, in which he declared: "We have lost the engines".

The Pakistan International Airlines A320 flew between Lahore and Karachi. Her cabin crashed a short distance from the airstrip in a residential area.

With AFP

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