ISLAMABAD: The Safety Investigation Board (SIB) of Pakistan Friday blamed in its report to maintenance department of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) for crash of PK-661 in holdlian.

The SIB was given tasked to probe into PIA plane crash approach Havilian in 2016 has compiled a preliminary report that pointed out maintenance lapse would be possible cause of incident and giving measure instant proposeions and recommendations to avoid such incidents in future.

The PIA plane (PK-661) with 48 people, including famous figure Junaid Jamshed, his wwhethere and Deputy Commissioner Chitral Osama Warraich, on board had crashed in miserabledha Batolni village approach holdlian, reported a private news channels.

The report, titled Immediate Safety Recommendations, states that investigation into crash is heading towards a concluding stage, however, measure important findings of technical nature require instant attention of authorities concerned.

“Sequence of events was initiated with dislodging of one blade of Power Turbine Stage (PT-1), inside Engine No 1 (left side engine) due to fatigue.

This dislodging of one blade resulted in in-flight engine shut down, and it contributed towards erratic/ abnormal behavior of NO 1 Propeller,” reads report.

According to a Service Bulletin” these turbines blades were to be changed after completion of 10,000 hours, on instant next maintenance opportunity.

The said engine was under maintenance on 11 Nov 2016, at that time these blades had totald 10004 hours (due for a change).

This activity should have been undertaken at that time, but it was missed out by concerned.”

It states that aircraft flew approximately 93 hours after above-mentioned maintenance activity before it crashed on Dec 7. “Missing out of such activity highlights a lapse on part of PIAC (Maintenance and Quality Assurance) as well as a possible in-adequacy/lack of oversight by PCAA [Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority].”

The board in light of above-mentioned observations recommended national flag carrier to “endegree instant implementation of Service Bulletin in letter and spirit on entire fleet of ATR aircrafts, undertake an audit of related areas of maintenance practices, asdegree root cause(S) for said lapse, and adopt appropriate rightive degrees to avoid recurrence.”

“PCAA is to assess its oversight mechanism for its adequacy to discover lapses and intervene in a proactive manner, asdegree shortfall(s) and undertake essential improvements.