ABBOTTABAD: The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) staff started shifting the crashed plane’s wreckage from Havelian to Islamabad on Friday amid tight security and the process is likely to take a couple of days to complete.

Officials said that in order to shift the wreckage, a special jeep road measuring 2km was completed on a war footing from a link road to the site of the crash. Special funds were provided for the purpose by local MPA Aurangzeb Nalotha, who is PML-N’s parliamentary leader in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

The officials said that services of a local contractor had been hired by the airline to shift the wreckage of the flight PK-661 from the hills of Batlongi village. The wreckage is spread around 300 square metres.

Parts of the crashed plane have been assembled and dumped on the roadside where their packing was done by PIA and Civil Aviation Authority staff under the supervision of the safety and quality manager of PIA, North, Syed Atif Shah, in specially-built cartons.

Havelian DSP Khurshid Tanoli, who has been asked to make arrangements in this regard, said that parts of the engine had been moved to Islamabad in the first consignment and efforts were being made to pack the entire wreckage without dismantling any part of it, in the shortest possible time.

Published in Dawn December 24th, 2016