KARACHI, July 22: The tripartite committee, set up to determine the causes for the failure of PIA’s B-747 Combi to take off from Islamabad airport on Sunday, has asked for two more days to complete its initial report, PIA Chairman Ahmad Saeed said on Tuesday.

He was talking to journalists at the inaugural function of the PIA’s courier service.

The committee — comprising representatives of the Civil Aviation Authority, PIA and the Ministry of Defence — is holding an inquiry. The pilot of flight PK-717, scheduled for New York, had aborted the take off on July 20. There were 248 passengers on-board the aircraft at the time of the incident.

Mr Saeed denied that a preliminary report had already been received from the internal inquiry committee, saying: “We will not hide anything from the press,” adding that the report would be made public as soon as he received it.

Dismissing the reasons attributed for the aborted flight as being speculations, the PIA chief said nothing could be said about what had happened at a stage when even the initial report had not been received.

Referring to resumption of flights between Pakistan and India, he said PIA would be able to start flights within a week after the signing of an overflight accord between the two countries.