Decoding of black box of crashed Pakistani flight to begin on June 2: Investigators

The work on the flight and the cockpit voice recorders of the Pakistani airplane that crashed in a densely populated area, killing 97 people, will start from June 2 in France, the French aviation investigation authority has said.

The Airbus A320 aircraft of the national carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) had 91 passengers and a crew of eight when it crashed into the Jinnah Garden area near Model Colony in Malir on Friday, minutes before its landing.

Ninety-Seven passengers were killed. Eleven people on the ground were injured.

An 11-member team of experts from an Airbus facility in the French city of Toulouse arrived in Pakistan last week to conduct an independent probe into the crash involving its aircraft.

“@Airbus #A320 AP-BLD @Official_PIA. Technical work on FDR & CVR will start at @BEA_Aero 02/06/20. @BEA_aero thanks a lot AAIB from Pakistan for the coordination, organization and support provided,” BEA, France’s Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authority, said in a tweet on Saturday.

The flight data recorder (FDR) records time, altitude, airspeed, heading, and aircraft attitude and other in-flight characteristics.

The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) is a device used to record the audio environment in the flight deck for accidents and incident investigation purposes.

It records and stores the audio signals of the microphones and earphones of the pilots’ headsets and of an area microphone installed in the cockpit.

The BEA said that Pakistan’s Aircraft Accident and Investigation Board (AAIB) team will fly to France after the work on the crash site is completed.

“The mission on site is about to be completed. @BEA_Aero @Airbus @SafranEngines @CFM_engines & Pakistan’s AAIB team will then fly to France,” it said in the tweet.

The team of foreign experts includes Airbus company representatives and members from France, Germany, the UK and other countries.

They visited the crash site during the week and inspected the debris of the aircraft and the runaway and found the cockpit voice recorder.

Earlier, the flight data recorder of the plane was recovered.

The investigation team, which reached Karachi on May 26, was to return after two days. As the team could not trace some key evidence required for the probe, they extended their stay.

The team conducted a forensic examination of the aircraft wreckage and also collected different parts of the plane that would help in identifying the cause of the crash.

They also used drone cameras for the purpose.

The team also visited the radar centre at the Jinnah International Airport and the runaway and reviewed the arrangements made for the landing and take-off of the planes, inspected the equipment in the radar room.

The team then visited the control tower and reviewed the code of conduct followed after receiving an emergency call.