ISLAMABAD, Feb 25: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is reported to have emerged unscathed in the Fokker crash inquiry report.

CAA Director-General Farooq Rehmatullah told Dawn that there was nothing relating to the authority in the report, which is yet to be made public by the government.

The Lahore-bound PIA Fokker F-27 flight PK-688 had crashed on July 10, 2006, minutes after taking off from Multan airport. All 45 on board were killed.

The report has concluded that a fatal combination of pilot and on-ground errors caused the incident. The on-ground factors concern engineering lapses.

Aviation experts pointed to Section 8 of the CAA’s Accident Investigation Manual, which relates to navigation and landing aids (visual and non-visual).

Different provisions of the section call for looking into aids available at the station of departure and their utilisations and effectiveness.

All air crash inquiries are conducted according to the checklist contained in the manual but certain of its clauses were said to have been skipped in the probe.

The sources said none of the radars in the country was calibrated at the time of the crash. The radars were last calibrated in September/October 2001. Subsequently, calibration was done a fortnight after the crash.

The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Defence in its meeting on July 25 last year had asked the CAA to submit the radar calibration record but the information was not provided.

CAA’s own regulations call for checking the equipment on a regular basis for “safe operation of all traffic, which depends on the availability of radio navigational facilities”. The CAA has been claiming that the crash was not connected to calibration and that it was maintaining all navigational, communication, route and approach instruments and visual aids at all airports at an optimum level.

But aviation experts claim that the Fokker had sought radar guidance back to Multan airport when its engine caught fire and visibility was very bad. They say the faulty radar was unable to guide the aircraft properly.

Moreover, they contend, high-powered lights for guiding aircraft in bad visibility installed at Multan airport were not fit.

Pakistan Airlines Pilots Association (Palpa) chief Capt Khalid Hamza, in his comments on the reported pilot error, had questioned the competence of the inquiry team and the procedures adopted for the probe.

The sources alleged that the inquiry team ignored certain essential aspects of the investigation.

Pointing out that procedures laid down in the accident investigation manual were overlooked, the sources referred to the crash of a small aircraft at Walton airport on Sept 29 last year in which the two people on board were burnt to death because of dysfunctional fire-fighting equipment at the airport.

The Accident Investigation Manual’s Section 13 asks the investigators to inquire about the fire-fighting equipment used and its effectiveness.

Both the pilot and the other man in the aircraft were reportedly alive after the crash and trapped in the burning aircraft on ground they were screaming for help. CAA fire trucks took 12 minutes to reach the crash site on the airport premises and then it was discovered that there was no foam in the trucks.

The Safety Investigation Board did not find enough evidence to hold the CAA responsible.

In another incident in Sharjah on Nov 26, 2006, when a calibration aircraft of the CAA crashed, the SIB reportedly skipped the clause of the accident manual dealing with the qualification of pilots.