KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday directed the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to submit comments regarding the entire procedure being followed before issuing airworthiness certificate in a petition seeking a judicial probe following the 2016 PIA ATR plane crash.

PIA officials submitted that they had enhanced their capabilities with due diligence for all compliance while petitioner informed the bench about an email sent in 2012 regarding lack of capability on the part of PIA to perform inspection and repair.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar also directed the PIA officials to file its reply about the concerns shown in the email and its current status.

In the last hearing, the bench had summoned the officials of PIA and CAA after submission of the final investigation report regarding an ATR aircraft crash in 2016 that revealed that the aircraft had three technical anomalies.

PIA claims it is complying with all safety recommendations of the AAIB

At the outset of the hearing, the PIA representatives submitted statements along with some documents.

They informed the bench that currently, six ATR aircraft were in operation — two at Islamabad and four at Karachi.

However, CAA’s director-airworthiness Zahid Bhatti submitted that he had recently come from aboard and requested for a short time to submit his comments.

The bench directed him to appear on Dec 17 along with comments about the entire procedure followed by the CAA before issuing an airworthiness certificate.

He stated that besides physical inspection, they also check one-year flight record including maintenance, if any, carried out.

PIA’s general manager-corporate safety Captain Mohsin Ausaf informed the bench that in order to implement the safety measures they had installed a flight data monitoring (FDM) system.

He maintained that in case of any violation by the pilot the FDM software immediately raised flags associated with such violations as the purpose of flags was to give monitoring management a clear idea of how safe its pilots were operating.

The chief technical officer of the PIA, Amer Ali, also submitted a statement along with some documents regarding implementation of the Aircraft Accident and Investigation Board’s (AAIB) safety recommendations and was of the view that PIA was complying with all such measures.

He submitted that PIA’s engineering department, which was mainly held responsible for the ATR crash in the investigation report by the AAIB, had reviewed and implemented more restrictive maintenance philosophy on the old design power turbine blades by changing “its soft life interval of 10,000 to a hard life”.

He maintained that at present the PIA fleet of operating ATR aircraft was installed with over-speed governors, certified after required inspection of the pin from its manufacturer, in compliance with the AAIB’s safety recommendations.

The propeller value modules (PVM) are properly maintained in accordance with service information letter issued in April 2019 while Pratt & Whitney Canada conducted a facility survey in May 2018 for enhancement of its overhauling capabilities of PW127 engines, he added.

The bench observed that in a nutshell the PIA representatives affirmed that they had enhanced their capabilities with due diligence for all compliance as both officials stated that they were observing all prerequisites of technical and maintenance issues in all aircraft/fleet of the PIA and accepted the responsibility to ensure future safety and technical measures.

At this, the petitioner placed before the bench a copy of an email dated Aug 29, 2012 generated by UTC Aerospace Systems to the PIA deputy chief engineer regarding the 563F propeller blade major inspection.

The petitioner emphasized that according to the email, in some areas the PIA had no capability to perform all the works but they were interfering, which might cause major accident.

In the email it was reminded to the operations that they did not have the capability to perform several tasks. They had also shown their concern in the mail that they received blades (FR20061049RT) for repair and the company got information that it was overhauled by the PIA in December 2011.

The bench directed the petitioner to provide a copy of the email to the PIA representatives so that they might also submit a reply on the next date of hearing about what was the current status and whether the concern shown in the email had been attended and implemented.

The petition was filed after an Islamabad-bound flight of the national flag carrier had crashed in Abbottabad district after it took off from Chitral on December 7, 2016 in which 42 passengers and crew, including singer-turned-preacher Junaid Jamshed and his wife, lost their lives.

Impleading the PIA, CAA and others as respondents, the petitioner argued that there were various incidents where ATR planes of the PIA crashed in which a large number of precious lives were lost and pleaded for a judicial inquiry to fix responsibility on the officials responsible for it, prosecute them and order compensation to the legal heirs of the victims.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2020