The second black box of the Airbus A320 of the Pakistani company PIA which crashed Friday in Karachi has been found, announced Thursday the French Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA), which will analyze the two flight recorders .
Read also: Pakistan: airliner crashes in Karachi over residential area
The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), which records the conversations between pilots and the noises on the plane, in particular the possible alarms, was found at the accident site by the investigators of the Pakistani investigation bureau, l 'AAIB, clarified on Twitter the BEA, which is participating in the investigation as " accredited representative " of the state of design of the aircraft.
The other flight recorder, the " Flight Data Recorder " (FDR), which records all the flight parameters (speed, altitude, engine speed, trajectory, etc.), was recovered and transmitted to the Pakistani investigators, had announced Saturday evening the CEO of the airline Arshad Malik. The CVR " will be a key part of the crash investigation ," Pakistan international airlines tweeted on Thursday.
The two black boxes have been found and " the French authorities are going to take them with them, " Pakistani Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said at a press conference.
Questions abound on flight 8303, during which the pilot made a first landing attempt, the aircraft having touched down several times, before departing for a second attempt. A recording authenticated by a PIA spokesperson heard a pilot distress call from the control tower, in which he declared: " We have lost the engines ".
The plane left after touching the ground
" The million dollar question is why did the pilot choose to (take off again and attempt a new landing) after hitting the ground, " said Minister Khan. Experts point to the possibility that the pilot first tried to land the Airbus without the landing gear having come out.
The two black boxes, whose status has not been specified, will be sent to France for analysis by the laboratory of BEA, one of the few international organizations with expertise in the field, according to this source.
The Pakistan International Airlines A320 was on a flight between Lahore and Karachi and crashed into a residential area on Friday, killing 97 of the 99 people on board, including eight crew members. The aircraft cabin crashed into a street and parts of the aircraft were found embedded in buildings, weakening certain structures.
According to the Minister of Aviation, a preliminary report on the crash should be made public on June 22 during a parliamentary session. A team of three BEA investigators, accompanied by six technical advisers from the manufacturer Airbus and one from the engine manufacturer Safran, arrived in Karachi on Tuesday morning to take part in the investigation. Their presence on site is scheduled for one week.
Frequent civil and military aircraft and helicopter crashes have occurred in Pakistan over the years. The last major air accident in the country dates back to December 2016. A PIA plane carrying out an internal flight had crashed in the mountainous North, killing 47 people.
