The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) have started preparing the ground to blame their incompetence on the pilot of the PIA plane, which crashed in Karachi on May 22.
The CAA said in a report submitted to the PIA that pilot Sajjad Gul ignored instructions of the air traffic controller. That’s the reason the plane crashed, the report says.
But the question is this, was this pilot’s responsibility to have maintenance-related issues of the plane fixed? Was he responsible for the plane’s inspection? Was it his duty to clear the plane for flight?
Why didn’t the control tower inform the pilot about the engines hitting the runway during the first attempt to land? The management is trying to put the entire blame for the crash on the pilot instead of answering the aforementioned questions.
In a letter to the PIA’s Safety Department, CCA Additional Director (Operations) Iftikhar Ahmad has said the air traffic controller continued to give instructions to the pilot about landing, but the instructions were not followed.
The plane was flying at a high altitude at the control zone approach point and the air traffic controller informed the pilot about this. When the plane was flying at seven nautical miles, it was at an altitude of 5,200 feet. According to the air control tower, this altitude was higher than the approach profile.
The pilot was again told to take the plane left at 180 degree and lift it to the required altitude. The altitude the plane was flying at was higher than the altitude required for landing at the Karachi airport.
